


At Garden's Edge

by Mika_Mina



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Human, Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Comfort, Demi Crowley, Demisexuality, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Hacking, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Other, Romance, are my chapter titles as long as panic!at the disco song titles? ...sometimes, romcom, sap, tags will be added as story progresses, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25616872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mika_Mina/pseuds/Mika_Mina
Summary: Aziraphale has finally achieved his life long dream career: buying old rare books. Well, he also appraises and repairs them too. He’s recently moved to town (if 5 months is recent) where he’s settling into his newly relaxing life and meeting all sorts of characters (whenever he finally decides to step outside).Crowley, also a new resident, has opened his own Flower Shop/Plant Nursery hybrid called Garden’s Edge. He’s escaped his past, is hopeful about the future for once, and is benignly amused by the exasperating book repairer who can’t, for the life of him it seems, manage to keep a single plant alive.But not everything’s as it seems and they’re about to find out that you can’t always outrun your past. Some things have to be faced head on.(A romcom with a plot that’s not just about the romance, though there’s plenty of that too.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 121
Kudos: 122





	1. Repeat Offender

**Author's Note:**

> This was Beta read by the awesome Tarek_giverofcookies!
> 
> I'll be updating this fun story every Thursday so come join me in the fun and shenanigans!
> 
> (Tags will be updated as the story progresses as to not potentially spoil anything, but for those concerned, there are no hard warnings for this story at all.)

“Oh dear.”

Fretfully Aziraphale stared down at the... well. It was a plant, certainly, but he hadn’t the faintest clue what _kind_ of plant it was due to the _circumstances_ in which he had acquired it. (The circumstances Aziraphale had acquired this plant were as follows: Shortly after killing the second plant, he returned to the plant shop thinking it was merely unwell and was promptly thoroughly embarrassed when informed, no, it most certainly was _dead_. In a bit of a, not-panic, as it were, he got another plant. Not for anything as silly as wanting to prove to the owner that he _could_ in fact keep a plant alive. That would just be silly. All the same, with the embarrassment ringing in his ears, he didn’t quite hear what kind of plant he had scooped up to buy and, theoretically, keep alive.)

All the same, it was green, it grew, and was in a pot. Or. Rather. It _had_ been green and it _had_ been growing, only now it was rather a bit.... brown, and somewhat on the crumbly side. He didn’t think it had been crumbly when he bought it. And that had only been, what, a week ago?

Oh. Plants needed to be watered, didn’t they? Or at least, plants that weren’t catuses did. Catstuses? Cacti? Oh, well, regardless, this was rather leafy, er, _had_ been rather leafy and not covered in spines so, a plant but not a cactus. Thus, it needed watering. Probably.

When _was_ the last time he’d watered it?

.... _Had_ he watered it?

Ever?

“Oh dear...” No wonder it was brown. And before it had been just the loveliest shade of green too. Well, at least he knew what the problem was now.

A quick search of his book-laden shop produced no results but in the back room he found one of his many misplaced mugs and filled it with water from the tiny old sink back there.

Making his way back through the maze of books he nearly passed by the spot of crumbling brown. It blended in fairly well with all of his old leather-bound books, quite the opposite of it’s supposed purpose. Or, well, rather the excuse he’d given when buying the poor thing.

‘Just needed a pop of color in the shop’, he’d scrambled to say, ‘it’d liven the place up’, he’d continued on with the lie turned not-quite-a-lie.

He stared down at the plant with a frown. Right. What was it that Crowley fellow did to make his plants so perfect and verdant? A bit unconventional, Aziraphale thought, but then, it _did_ seem to have surprisingly good results. Or maybe it didn’t. Aziraphale wouldn’t know, didn’t know, he knew next to nothing about plants.

He watched the plant, gave it a moment to let the water sink in as was only polite, then adopted his best stern glare. Hands on his hips, lips pursed in displeasure, he looked down at the plant from above.

“Alright.” He said sternly, searching his mind for the right words and a harsh tone, “you’d best... you’d best buck up, you hear? I’m most displeased with all this brown.”

His glare wobbled.

A brown stick- stem?- _thing_ on it crumbled off to join the other dead bits in the pot looking so terribly dejected and unhappy.

The worried frown broke through Aziraphale’s glare and he stepped up closer to the pot feeling absolutely horrid about its poor state. “Oh, oh I’m sorry my dear. I’m sure you’re doing your best.” He hovered over the plant, unsure and twisting his pinky ring around his finger, “why don’t I give you a day, hmm? Let the water soak in and I’m sure you’ll be fit as a fiddle tomorrow! Or, er, fit as a.... as a plant I suppose. A healthy plant!”

He stared at it but alas the plant did nothing.

“Right.” He took a step away but his eyes kept darting back to the plant. He really did _not_ want to show up at Crowley’s flower shop again with a dead plant. _Another_ dead plant. The _third_ dead plant.

He twisted the ring around his pinky finger.

Right.

Okay.

He drew himself up, all five feet and ten inches of himself, and instructed the plant firmly, “I expect you to grow better by tomorrow or I’ll be _very_ displeased.”

A stern nod and then he left it. To hopefully consider his words and, er, buck up, as it were.

Tomorrow came and found Aziraphale properly embarrassed and recounting the whole sordid tale to Crowley, a man who was finding _far_ too much delight in his troubles.

“And I did what you said to try but- well...” he gestured to the brown and crumbling plant as it if was explanation enough.

It was.

“I can’t get it to grow no matter what I do.”

Finally he looked back up at Crowley, the most unusual flower shop owner he had ever met, and found him biting his lip to keep from laughing. At him.

Aziraphale scowled.

“Are you quite through?”

Crowley’s grin only widened, the edges twitching with badly concealed mirth as he fought to keep his laughter back. “Sorry, sorry,” he managed at last, laughter tracing the edges of his entirely unapologetic words like fizz crackling in pop, “it’s just- well- it- it can’t feel shame if it’s _dead_ Aziraphale.”

“Oh.” Meaning shaming it into growing better would do nothing.

A laugh slipped through Crowley’s pursed lips and Aziraphale groaned, “really Crowley? Must you? Whatever is so funny about me killing another plant?”

The man shrugged, unable to keep his amusement off his face. Aziraphale was sure if he could see the man’s eyes that they’d be shining with laughter. “I’ve never seen someone- er, uh, hm,” he seemed to suddenly break off to chew his words in a rather sudden change of mind, “Well, hey, at least this one lasted longer.”

Aziraphale wished he wouldn’t wear those large dark sunglasses all the time, it was rather hard to decipher his expressions with just the rest of his face. Eyes were always so expressive, even with just the way they could crinkle at the edges, darken, or flicker away. They were extremely helpful in reading people in general, giving insight into sudden changes like the one that happened just now.

Crowley’s head dipped down as he looked at the plant before he glanced away only to do a double take. His eyebrows rose slowly as he leaned in towards the plant, hands drifting to settle on either side of the pot.

“How often did you say you watered it again?”

Bugger.

“I didn’t. Say, that is.”

Crowley’s head tilted up to look at him. Aziraphale twisted his ring.

“Aziraphale...” Oh he did _not_ like the way he drew out his name. He drew it out slowly, with a budding hint of fiendish delight, like he’d caught Aziraphale with his hand in the cookie jar which was absurd because they were both adults and furthermore it should not have sent a little shiver through him- “did you even water this plant at all?”

“Of course I did!”

Crowley’s eyebrows rose high above the sunglasses in disbelief as he glanced between Aziraphale and the dead plant. A smirk slithered its way across his lips, his snake bite piercings glinting in the shop lights like a warning, like the flash of fangs before the bite, like-

“ _Before_ it was dead?” he challenged knowingly.

Aziraphale pursed his lips and looked elsewhere, refusing to give Crowley the satisfaction of a surrender.

Crowley laughed anyways, a sharp bright thing that startled his heart into skipping a beat. His cheeks flushed in mortification. Three dead plants, really? _Three._

“If you’re quite through,” Aziraphale chanced a quick glance at the rather unprofessional shop owner dressed in a black leather jacket and piercings who was apparently still struggling not to laugh further at his _customer_. **In** the customer's _face!_ Honestly! It was a wonder he got any business at all with customer service like this; it was probably a good thing he was so endearing or Aziraphale wouldn’t have come back. What with his laugh, sense of humor and-

“How about I suggest a plant for you this time?”

Considering the last three plants were chosen rather spotty criteria, that was probably... for the best. Especially since said criteria had been, at the moment of choosing, the following: 1. Whatever plant was closest to him that was also 2. appealing looking and 3. colorful, as to comply with his first lie as to why he was there.

(Said lie was told in a moment of panic when he had dropped by the flower shop without fully realizing that’s where his feet had taken him to. This wouldn’t have been cause for alarm if not for the fact of their first meeting and also that once asked if there was anything Crowley could help him with he came upon the realization that he had been thinking of him since their first meeting and couldn’t for the life of him think of what to say. He’d meant to say something companionable, like picking up on their conversation about plays, but ended up empty headed and dumbly pointing at the first colorful plant he saw and excusing it as “needing a pop of color in the shop” to “liven it up”. After all, it was a flower shop, so surely it was normal for people to pop by looking for plants? That wouldn’t be odd. Right? Right.)

“Oh alright,” he said, giving in as if he were doing Crowley the favor of letting him choose instead of the other way around.

As a reward he was granted a glimpse at one of those flash-paper grins Crowley seemed to have when he felt particularly victorious. Which was a bit ridiculous given that choosing a plant for Aziraphale had been what spurred it but it was bright and nearly so infectious that Aziraphale was fighting back a grin.

Crowley turned on the spot, spinning slowly and casting appraising eyes across the shop like a general looking for his best soldier. Or at least, the one that could best stand up for the current mission.

Oh dear. The mission was surviving Aziraphale’s care wasn’t it?

“Ah, ones with no pollen if you could, my dear.” The stuff got absolutely everywhere and he-

“Right, don’t want to damage your books, yeah. I remember. Said you ran a book evaluation shop right?” Crowley was still scanning the room looking for the perfect plant so he missed the way Aziraphale lit up at his casual remembrance of his pride and joy.

He knew he rather tended to, ah, “go on and on” about it as it were and that most people found it dreadfully boring. As a result he tended to try and avoid talking about it, so he knows he only brought it up once, _maybe_ twice, in the four times he’s met with Crowley. He hadn’t wanted to bore the first interesting conversational partner he’d had in a while and also having that bored, glazed over, checked out look aimed at his pride and joy stung more than just a bit.

So. That Crowley had bothered to remember and then even bring it up in conversation was... strangely touching.

Crowley glanced at him and at once Aziraphale realized he’s been lost in his head a few moments too long.

“Correct my dear,” he cut himself off out of habit from adding _‘and restoration’_ and cleared his throat to rid it of the surprise in his voice only to undo all of that with his next unexpected words, “I’m surprised you remembered honestly.”

Crowley actually tuned all the way around to face him for that, both eyebrows raised dramatically over his sunglasses as to not be missed.

“What? Why not? ‘Course I remember, don’t have _that_ bad of a memory.”

“Well, it’s just,” he fidgeted with his ring, “I’m surprised to care about my owning a bunch of dusty books.”

Crowley made a few interesting, if confusing, noises in the back of his throat before stumbling his way into actual words, “wha- gah- don’t, don’t say that about them Aziraphale, it’s obvious you love them-”

“Love?!” he spluttered flushing in mortification, “I would hardly-”

Crowley stilled from his anxious fluttering about and gave Aziraphale a crooked tilt of a smile. He was surprised to find it a bit... tender.

“Aziraphale. You near light up the room when you talk about your books and your shop.”

“I-”

Firmly, but gently, “you do.” A cough and Crowley turned away but not before Aziraphale caught the pink high on his cheeks. “Anyways, it’s fine. I like seeing you light up- I mean! Uh, smile- ack- i- guh-” his shoulders hunched up a bit, “whatever. Just- talk about it all you want. I get it.”

And standing there, in the middle of a veritable greenhouse sanctuary of plants, of flowers, of things oft thought of as trivial, or pretty but not worth much, of the things Crowley so clearly loved and prided himself on, Aziraphale realized he _did_ get it. And more than just that, more than just sympathizing/empathizing with him, he wanted Aziraphale to talk about his shop, his work, the things he took pride and joy in.

A little stunned, a little touched, awed, the soft “ _oh_ ” slipped out all on its own.

Crowley grumbled a bit, but with his back to Aziraphale he could see very clearly how the tips of his ears were pinking. “Right. So. Uh. Talk about your books all you want.”

Aziraphale smiled.

“All right.”

Crowley stilled, then chanced turning halfway towards him with a glance before pretending to inspect a nearby plant. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

A blink and you’ll miss it flash of a smile before, “right. Plants then.” And without another word on the subject he stalked off towards his chosen victim across the shop, looking all the word for a predator on a mission. The image was only broken by his constant, lovely, rambling of what kind of plant it was, how to care for it, and how this one should be up to snuff and wouldn’t _dare_ disappoint either of them. Aziraphale politely pretended not to hear his soft hissed threat to the plant of _“would it?”_ but he couldn’t quite hide his smile quick enough before Crowley turned around. They both faltered for a moment, something hovering in the shop, new and fragile; It seemed tight, strung like a tightrope. Tense but not hard.

Crowley spluttered into the ending of his plant ramble before pushing the potted plant into Aziraphale’s hands almost a touch rushed. “Right. Snake plant, remember. Sturdy, beautiful, _shouldn’t_ give you any trouble.” There was a stink eye aimed at the plant of all things, “No direct sunlight, shouldn’t have to water it all that often.” Here the stink eye at the plant morphed into a glint aimed at Aziraphale, Crowley’s mouth doing a crooked slant of a teasing grin as he finished with, “About once every two to three weeks instead of days. That sound doable?”

A nervous return smile and Aziraphale managed a, “yes. Quite.” as he fought to keep the bubble of embarrassment in his chest from popping.

The grin wobbled a touch into smile territory before Crowley coughed and looked elsewhere for a moment. “Right. So. Any questions and you can call me. Er. The shop. Me _at_ the shop.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Sounds jolly good.”

“Jolly good?”

“Oh, don’t make fun.”

“Never,” the grin seemed to slip onto Crowley’s face of it’s own accord, “you just have the oddest way of talking.”

“ _Crowley._ ”

“Oh I didn’t mean that as a bad thing, honest!” He held up his hands placatingly, eyes dancing with delight, “It’s very _you._ ”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether he was meant to take that as a compliment or insult. He decided it didn’t matter how it was meant and that he’d take it as a compliment regardless. “Well. Thank you I suppose.”

Crowley didn’t laugh, though it seemed to be a near thing as he fought back a grin rather dismally. “Sure thing, Aziraphale.”

-

_**Nine Days Later** _

Crowley stared down at the terribly drooping and definitely dead snake plant with total horrified amazement.

“I-wha.... _how?!_ ”

Sheepishly Aziraphale began making his excuses but Crowley wasn’t even listening to him, instead he was muttering under his breath to himself about counting days and how _‘these things practically thrived with neglect! So how?!’_

Aziraphale let his excuses trail off, clearly he wasn’t being listened to anyways, and the hot flush of embarrassment climbing up his cheeks was taking all his willpower to keep down anyhow. It had been nine days. A record but still.

“But-i-you-” Crowley’s stuttering stopped suddenly as he peered even closer at the plant, his face nearly in the plant, eyebrows scrunched down while his critical eyes surely picked out the details of the plant’s death. Then his eyebrows shot up in surprise before a low groan escaped the man, a hand reaching up into his hair to run through it but instead stopping to grip it tightly in frustration as he looked at Aziraphale, flabbergasted.

“First you can’t remember to water the plant, _ever!_ \- and then- _and_ _then_ I give you a plant you’re not supposed to water for 2 weeks and you- _you waterboard it to death!_ ”

“It looked parched!”

“It- it- _parched?!_ ” repeated Crowley, incredulous.

“Yes!”

“I-it- _gah!_ ” he seemed to be having problems with speaking, stuttering and stumbling over half formed words before finally landing on a slightly helpless, “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Then perhaps,” Aziraphale started primly, “if you can’t think of anything nice to say then you shouldn’t say anything at all.” A pause where Crowley’s mouth fell open in astonishment, filling Aziraphale with a sort of delighted glee, and then he added, “and then perhaps when you’re done with that you can sell me another plant. A... sturdier plant.”

Crowley tilted his head back and laughed, bright and sharp.

“ _Sturdier he says._ Yeah, yeah alright, I can do that.”

He was still grinning when he led the way back through the isles of plants.


	2. Pleasant Surprises or How It All Started

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad y'all are having fun with this story so far! :D  
> It's only gonna get better! <3  
> Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter, it means a lot <3 <3 <3
> 
> Beta read by the awesome Tarek_giverofcookies :D

_It starts like this:_

Nothing was going to ruin today. Not when it had begun with the most spectacular job.

He had been contacted to determine the authenticity and worth of a supposed First Folio (Also known as _**Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies**_) and had thus consisted of Aziraphale having the indescribable joy of being able to make careful study of one of his most sought out pieces. It was in fair condition and, even more delightful and astonishing, it was also complete! Complete First Folios were incredibly rare and Aziraphale was blessed to be able to get to see it himself in person. If there had been any chance at all that the owner was willing to sell it, Aziraphale would have contacted another appraiser to do the job just so he could buy the copy himself. He’d parted ways with his family a few months ago but... _a complete First Folio..._

All in all, it was a delightful evening and a pleasurable day in his work.

He was in such a good mood that he thought to take a short stroll around his relatively new neighborhood and perhaps try that little café he had eyed on his way down to his client’s residence.

"Relatively new” in this case means that Aziraphale had moved in three months ago and had yet to actually fully explore the city or meet people who didn’t either have rare books to sell or wish to assess the value of said rare books and so the city was still new, in the unexplored way, to him.)

The little café was actually having quite the scrumptious tasting event going on when he got there, and unable to help himself, and also feeling the day could quite use the compliment, Aziraphale ended up ordering a box of assorted pastries to take back to the shop. There were just so many that he had enjoyed and quite a few new ones he’d never had before that he ended up splurging a bit too much perhaps, and ended up with two medium sized boxes instead of just the small one he had been aiming for. (Or perhaps it wasn’t too much, after all, this was a special occasion. It wasn’t every day that one got the opportunity to hold a genuine First Folio in their gloved hands! That quite called for a celebration!)

No matter, even with his warm tea, he had hands and arms enough to carry them. And besides, the anticipation of getting to have them for the next few days, and a few when he got home today certainly, was the best kind of payment. Besides, all the smells mingling together and wafting up from the boxes were simply divine.

Nothing was going to ruin this day. No, not even the rain. He had an umbrella for that.

So when the sky opened up, dark clouds having rolled in whilst he was perusing the pastry options, and then opened up as he was five steps from the café, he merely hurried over to an overhang where he could pull out his umbrella. Juggling the tea, the two boxes of pastries, his book bag, and a somewhat unwieldly umbrella, he managed to get everything just so. He might get a bit damp, but at least his book bag and the boxes of pastries would stay dry.

As previously stated, nothing was about to ruin his day.

Especially nothing so simple as rain. After all, rain was good, washed away the filth of the world and made everything smell that much better after it had gone.

Though, Aziraphale thought with a grimace as he stepped in a puddle three inches too deep and ended up soaking the hem of his trousers, he would be ever so grateful if it would hurry up to that being over bit so he could enjoy the benefits without threat of soaking. Of himself _or_ the pastries.

Instead, the rain seemed to pour harder and while he fretted for the safety of his pastries, he himself was also sliding right past unpleasantly damp and splashing right into unhappily wet. Before the transition could finish he threw his gaze across all the shops and openings, looking for a place open that he wouldn’t mind slipping into and that wouldn’t mind him waiting out the storm in.

His eyes finally caught on an antiques store and with a grin, _see? nothing could ruin today- it was full of pleasant surprises!_ , he sped up. His hurried sloshing hurried the toe of his shoe right into a sizable crack of sidewalk that was jutting up and hurried him right into a trip.

He had a moment, as one does in situations like these, where everything seemed to move both in slow motion and with a sort of deliberateness that spoke to his complete uselessness at being able to do a dratted thing about it. He flailed, trying to regain his balance but a gust of wind grabbed at his umbrella, unhelpfully pulling him _in_ the direction of his fall, and yanked both the umbrella and his tea from his hands. He watched, like flashes of his could have been life _\- enjoying each of those scrumptious pastries in decadence, the chocolate one paired with a nice deep dark coffee, the strawberry with some lovely angel food cake_ _and whipped cream_ _, the blueberry cheesecake pastry with-_ as the boxes of pastries flew from his grip to surely land sodden in the muddy puddled sidewalk just before he fell on top of them, Or in front of them. What difference would it make honestly? He’d be soaked, thoroughly embarrassed in public, and worst of all, the pastries would be ruined. And he’d so been looking forward to them...

Except.

Except that didn’t happen because the moment he felt his center of gravity pitch too far forward, past the point of being able to right it himself, he felt an arm wrap around his middle and haul him backwards, back onto his feet and crashing solidly into the chest behind him.

There was a moment where the only noise was the sound of the whipping wind and the rain falling on them, cold drops weaving through his hair, running down his face and soaking his coat even more thoroughly. Then Aziraphale felt the flush rush up his face as he realized just quite the spectacle he had made of himself, pinwheeling ungracefully like that in the middle of the street, reaching for-

“Oh no! The pastries!”

Forlorn he looked to where they had crashed to the ground and just as he realized there was only one soggy box where there should have been two, he felt the arm unwind from around him and with a nervous laugh a man stepped to the side.

“Ah, ‘bout that. Only managed to catch one. Here.”

And then a box was being shoved into Aziraphale’s hands before he knew quite what was happening.

“C’mon, c’mon, it’s _pouring_ out here- you’ll ruin your pastries.”

And then he was being steered through the door of a shop he had just passed, and as distracted as he was with it all happening so fast, it took a moment to realize there was a hand on his shoulder guiding him even as the owner rambled on, a touch nervously.

He took a moment, looking around to orient himself and the first thing that hit him was how very _green_ it was around him. Then, belatedly, he realized it was all so green because this was some sort of flowe shop.

The place looked brand new (It _was_ brand new, having opened the previous week, but as was established earlier, Aziraphale was hardly out and about enough to know this) and slightly more extravagant than was strictly needed for a flower shop. For starters, the place had black marble flooring and grey marble topped tables hosting rows of plants.  Competing for floor space  were potted trees,  bush starters, and  all sorts of other  types of greenery and plants that Aziraphale was all together very unfamiliar with. There was ample soft lighting, dimmed a bit though still brighter than the storm grey skies of outside which were visible through the two large storefront windows.

Oh. Oh dear he must have had _quite_ the view of Aziraphale making a sight of himself, flailing in front of his shop windows like that. 

And- “Oh heavens! Where are my manners?” He turned to face who had saved him, mind finally whirling and catching up sufficiently to allow him to  apologize and thank the man all while trying to devise a way to escape back out into the rain and away from this awkward encounter. 

“I apologize for that mess out there, but thank you dearly for catching me and the pastries.”

The man was shaking his head, dripping wet red hair flying about like a dog, while more water drops slid down his sharp jaw and long neck, before he stopped the motion to say “no biggie,” a crooked grin snaking its way across his thin lips.

He shook himself off, all long lanky limbs and smooth movements not unlike a snake slithering its merry way along. His leather jacket was shiny with the rain, and his dark sunglasses had multiple beads of water still clinging to the lenses doubtlessly making it harder to see and yet the man didn’t remove them.

“Shame you lost the other box though.”

Aziraphale’s mind lingered on the lost pastries and rather wistfully he agreed, “yes, a dreadful shame. I was so looking forward to them too.”

He’s startled out of his melancholy when the man saunters over past him again, peering out the shop window with a frown, “Hmmm, best not to go out just yet.” His head turned towards Aziraphale slightly like he’s glancing at the man, though really it was hard to be sure with those dark glasses hiding the man’s eyes, and mused, “Mm, yeah, wouldn’t want to ruin your last box with this rain.”

Aziraphale glanced out at the rain outside, a terribly thick sheet of white, and decided with a sigh that embarrassing sights aside, it probably _was_ for the best that he stayed inside. At least for the pastries’ sake.

“I do suppose you’re right.” He chanced a glance around the shop and inadvertently caught the light reflecting off the large puddle  of growing rainwater beneath himself, “oh! Oh dear, I’m dripping something awful all over this poor person’s shop!” And what a lovely shop it was with beautiful verdant plants and flowering vines and the such.

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” The man gave a careless wave of his hand as if to dismiss Aziraphale’s fretting. “’s fine.”

“It most certainly is not! I feel awful, barging in and bringing half of the rain inside like this.”

There was that crooked grin again as the man cocked his head to the side, watching him. “I invited you in, and besides, I’ll just get a mop. ‘S marble flooring anyhow, no damage done.” And then he was sauntering towards the back of the shop leaving Aziraphale stuck between following and dripping a trail all across the floor or staying put and making this one singular puddle larger.

He opted for the latter option, deciding that one puddle would be easier to clean up than multiple ones strewn about the shop. As he waited he looked around trying to determine what kind of plant shop this was. On this street he would have assumed a simple flower shop but as he looked closer it seemed to be more than that. For one, he could just spot the tops of young trees in the back of the shop looming over the potted plants, and for another, the shop seemed to hardly stop at trees and potted flowers. There was climbing ivy (and all manner of other climbing vine-like plants that Aziraphale had no knowledge of or names for) along one wall of the shop that various trellises were mounted to or stationed in front of. There were plants with flowers, plants without flowers, cacti, things that looked like they belonged in a graveyard, and everything in between.

Aziraphale was peering rather curiously at one such odd plant. It was a potted plant, with bright green tiny thin stems that ended in, well, they rather looked like shortened sweet pea pods at the ends, only with a slit where they opened that revealed the inside of the pod to be a smooth cherry pink. Instead of a smooth edges they had something quite like spine or spikes coming off of them, almost like a cactus but not.

He was slightly bent over, face near the plant with one arm cradling the pastry box to his chest when a voice spoke up behind him suddenly, startling him into a reflexive abrupt stillness and hyper-awareness.

“Ah, you found Audrey,” the voice was delighted in a surprised sort of way which helped the way Aziraphale’s heart was hammering in his chest by registering as nonthreatening. Slowly he straightened back up, plastering a smile on while he forced his body to calm down and to _please_ stop cataloging every little detail about the man. The man wasn’t a threat, he’d helped him out there in the rain, and even if it had come down to it, Aziraphale could take him. Honestly the man was skinny enough he looked near easy enough to snap in two even without Aziraphale’s strength and the lack of concealed weapons on the man’s self.

“Audrey?”

The man just grinned at him again, bemused, mop in one hand and a towel he offered to Aziraphale in the other.

“Oh.  _Oh_ , thank you,” Aziraphale gave a nervous smile, shoved his too fast pulse to the back of his mind, and took the towel whilst trying to figure out a way to pat himself dry in front of a stranger that wasn’t too terribly mortifying. “Whatever is she?”  He gestured towards the plant in question hoping to shift the man’s attentions towards it and away from himself.

The man, the man, he was quite tired of calling him ‘the man’ in his head- oh. Oh drat. He really _was_ all over the place today.

“Ah, pardon me, but I don’t think I quite caught your name?”

“Crowley,” the man- _Crowley_ offered, the edges of his lips quirking up into a hint of a smirk. “And you are...”

“Aziraphale.”

“ _Aziraphale_ , that’s an interesting name.”

Well tired of this game with practically every stranger he ever introduced himself to he was perhaps a bit clipped when he responded, “an old family name. Though you should hardly be complaining about it given yours.”

Crowley’s eyebrows rose before a smile slithered its way across his lips, more self-satisfied than benignly pleasant, as he leaned forward towards Aziraphale, braced against the mop. “Wasn’t complaining. It’s unique, I like it.” Then quite without giving Aziraphale so much as the leave to process that he continued on, “as for the plant, it’s a venus flytrap. Beauts those are, though I’ve always been a bit more fond of the carnivorous and other such odd-one out plants.”

Carnivorous... a venus flytrap named Audrey-

“Oh!” He swung his head to look back at the plant again as pleased recognition lit in him, “Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey 2, _of course_."  When he glanced back at Crowley with a small grin he was surprised to see a matching one on his face as well.

“Know it do you? Can’t tell you how many times that joke’s fallen flat.”

“A bit on the nose though, don’t you think? Though the one in the play was called Audrey 2, not Audrey.”

“Eh,” Crowley leaned a bit to the side, weight still precariously balanced against the mop stick, “this way either they get the joke and I get to talk plays or they don’t but don’t think I’m too loony. Sounds like I just name my plants this way. Less weird”

“Do you?”

“Well, had to with this one, she was practically begging for it. Besides, I couldn’t just _not_ name my first venus flytrap Audrey. Waste of a chance, that.”

Aziraphale smiled at his dithering, “deflection won’t help you, my dear.”

Crowley leaned back, surprised and spluttering a few aborted words here and there.

“Though,” Aziraphale made a show of looking around the whole shop, “it might be difficult to name _all_ the plants in here.” He looked back at Crowley and arched a brow playfully, “perhaps just the ones you’re fond of?”

Crowley looked away.

“...Maybe,” he allowed.

Tasking pity and wondering at his new found want of teasing people Aziraphale backtracked a bit, “speaking of plays though, you seemed to imply you’re fond of them?”

On familiar footing again Crowley looked back at him while trying to fight an excited grin, “oh yeah. Big fan. Love plays- best if you see them in person but, well, I’ve seen more than my fair share taped and they’re not so bad but it starts to loose something when you’re not there in person.”

“Oh definitely, I do so agree.” Already this evening of waiting out the rain in a flower shop was looking up. “How so all depends on the play though, but it’s always so much better in person. I happen to be particularly fond of the ones who choose the ending based on the audience. Can’t quite get that emotion the same way on tape as you do being a part of the decision in the crowd.”

“Mm yeah. Or when they interact with the audience as a part of the play, love when they do those bits. Also confetti.”

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, “gets everywhere.”

Crowley laughed, a bright sharp short thing of a laugh and gave him a grin, “best part,” he swore, “gets absolutely everywhere. Kids love it and the adults bitch about it after the play. Honestly they ought to be glad it’s not glitter, now _that_ you can never get rid of.”

Aziraphale truly scrunched up his whole face in disgust at that, “ _glitter_ ,” he said as if the stuff was as bad as the word tasted in his mouth, “truly must be the devil’s handiwork. The amount of clothing and books I’ve lost to it- well it just doesn’t bear thinking about.”

The grin that bloomed on Crowley’s face was sharp enough to cut and the man leaned towards him and with a teasing tilt to his words said, “think I might still have some in here from last week,” and then bent his head and ruffled his hand through his hair of all things! As if to shake some out on him!

Aziraphale wasn’t expecting the laugh that bubbled out of him and so it tumbled out freely. And then Crowley tilted his head back up, still bent a bit at the hips, with the most pleased grin on his face and Aziraphale felt a bit lighter than he had all week.

A faint cardboard crunch sound jolted them both back to their selves and as one they looked at the box Aziraphale had started to press a bit too hard against his chest.

“Oh no,” but when he opened them the pastries were just fine. In fact, they didn’t even seem to be damp from all the wet outside he had traipsed through. They looked as perfect as they smelt, which of course was heavenly.

“Are they alright?”

Aziraphale looked up to see Crowley’s worried expression, somehow noticing only just now with the worried twist of his lips that he had two piercings just under his lower lip, one to either side. A snake bite piercing that somehow seemed fitting. They were a dark chrome and seemed to catch in the light as Crowley shifted, inadvertently pulling Aziraphale back to the present with a burning kind of embarrassment climbing to his cheeks.

“No, no they’re perfectly fine.” He glanced back at the pastries and then at Crowley as an idea formed.

“Good then.”

“Very,” he nodded to himself as much as Crowley as he decided and then said, “would you mind terribly, my dear, finding us somewhere to sit? I’d like to share these with you as thanks and we might as well be comfortable while we do so.”

That seemed to surprise Crowley if the high rising of his eyebrows was any cue. “You sure? You looked like you were really looking forward to them.”

“I am,” he agreed with a smile, “but some things are better shared. Besides, it’s not completely for free.”

“Oh?” There was wariness in his voice but it was tempered with the cautious joy of someone who knew they were being teased.

“Indeed.” He couldn’t help the sly little smile on his face, it was too good having such a responsive and fun conversation partner like Crowley, he hadn’t had one in ages it seemed, “I fully expect a detailed conversation on the merits of plays seen in person versus taped as well as tangent conversations covering topics such as your favorite plays and the like.”

It was a delight indeed to watch the way Crowley tried to bite back a laugh and ended up with a snort instead.

“Do you now?”

“I do.”

A huff of a laugh, “alright, but _just this once_ ,” he teased and with a beckoning hand waved Aziraphale to follow him back into the shop in search of chairs.

They forgot all about rain storms and water puddles and mops in favor of shared sweets, pleasing conversations, and delightful company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next Thursday! <3


	3. Dead Plants and Memes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still Beta read by the still awesome Tarek_giverofcookies

“You know,” Crowley drawled with his chin in his hand, elbow braced on the register counter as they both stared down at the 5th dead plant Aziraphale had brought back to the shop, “I’d probably give you a discount for bringing the pots back if I didn’t know it was because you kept murdering my plants.”

“My plants, you mean,” Aziraphale corrected, trying to distract them both from the fact that this was the fifth, _the fifth!,_ plant he’d killed.

Crowley tipped his head to the side, a sly tilt to his grin as he looked straight at Aziraphale from behind those dark glasses. “Do I?” he challenged, a hint of a purr to his voice that sent a shiver down Aziraphale’s spine and gave him a feeling that he was perhaps missing something.

“Well, of course,” he insisted, “I _did_ buy it after all.”

He peered at Crowley trying to figure out that feeling and a hint of awareness of... of _something_ but before he could figure it out Crowley’s grin tripped into an amused smile and he shoved himself to standing, palms flat on the counter.

“Right. Victim #6.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” Aziraphale’s mouth turned down, offended as much as he was embarrassed but before he could continue on Crowley snorted, gave a dismissive wave and claimed, “teasing, teasing,” and sauntered out from behind the counter to prowl the isles of his shop.

“Well, _still!_ ” Aziraphale insisted, trailing after the ginger and worrying the ring around his pinky finger, back and forth, back and forth, “that was terribly-”

“-Rude?” Crowley supplied with a glance back at him over his shoulder, grin terribly bright.

Aziraphale huffed. “-Inconsiderate. Honestly. It’s not as if I mean to kill them Crowley,” he rushed on when Crowley turned around, mouth open to say something, “or feel good about killing them!”

Crowley shut his mouth, twisting it back and forth as if he was literally chewing over his words as he watched Aziraphale in that particular way that made him think he was seeing far more than just Aziraphale’s physical form.

Crowley finally settled on a soft “I know” before abruptly turning on his heel to march towards a purple leafed plant and carrying on in a much lighter tone, “Alright! What about a gorgeous Elephant Ear?”

Aziraphale just watched him for a moment, feeling something else in his chest and a slow wonderment over how very many sides Crowley seemed to have and just how well hidden they all were but the one he chose to front.

Perhaps that quiet admission would have meant nothing or not all that much to someone else, but Aziraphale was used to a lot of his own particulars being brushed aside and yet Crowley hadn’t. The man _had_ been honestly teasing most likely but when it hit a nerve he had paused, _looked,_ addressed it, then moved on to keep from making Aziraphale more uncomfortable. So it hadn’t looked like much, a brush off, a stumble in conversation perhaps, if not for that soft tone of voice. The careful eye contact. The pause.

Aziraphale had nearly thirty years of reading every minutia people revealed in situations more perilous than this one and even with leaving that life, the skill and passive use of it hadn’t faded. So he noticed it all. Noticed that the loud mouth Crowley, prone to bluster, cutting wit, and dramatics, had decided to stop and be understanding, soft even, for just a moment.

Crowley was still prattling on about the plant, seemingly a touch nervously now.

Ah. He hadn’t yet responded had he? How terribly rude to leave the dear hanging like that after such a kindness. A kindness he hadn’t had anything to gain by.

Perhaps he was still so used to the cruelty of the life he left behind and that was why that small kindness had surprised him and meant so much at the same time.

Crowley picked up the pot and turned to face Aziraphale finally, somewhat half hidden by the plant.

“So. What do y’think?”

Aziraphale smiled terribly fond and reached out to gently run his fingers across a leaf.

“ _It’s lovely._ ”

“Ngk.”

-

“You are _ridiculous_.”

Crowley scowled at the computer screen, knowing that even while being on the other side of the internet that Anathema would be able to tell. “Am not. _Shu_ _dd_ _up_. Are you gonna help me or not?”

She cackled. “With this quest? Sure!” And as if to prove the point, she hexed the monster that had spawned behind them while they were talking and began attacking them.

Crowley groaned, “no you witch,” she laughed and he ignored it, “with the book.”

“For your problem customer? God you really are being ridiculous, just ask him out already.”

Crowley groaned in real life while simultaneously eliminating three more of the threats in their game AlwaysWinter. “Not everything is about that Anathema.”

He could _hear_ her eye roll. “Whatever you say, you closeted romantic. This cave’s clear. Which way?”

“Left. The boss’s right and once we beat him we wont be able to come back.”

They continued for a while, just clearing the remaining monsters and looting the dungeon’s branches, chattering about the game or Anathema’s day. Then as they made their way back to the final cave with the boss and it’s goons, Anathema asked. “What _is_ it about then?”

“What’s what about?”

“Oh don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.”

Crowley snorted.

“Crowley.”

He groaned. “Fine. Whatever.” He was silent for a moment, staring unseeing at the boss as they came to a stop just outside of the entrance of the cave. A few more steps and they’d trigger the boss battle and he wouldn’t have to talk.

She’d never let it go if he did that. She’d just hound him as soon as they were done. At least this way, he could just blurt something out and then start the boss battle after she got one line in and maybe the conversation would be dropped after that.

He sighed. “It’s just- he’s, ugh.. this is dumb- ridiculous.”

“Is not.”

“Of course you wouldn’t think it is. You just want blackmail material on me.”

She laughed. “As if I don’t have enough of that already. You’re stalling flower boy.”

He groaned. He didn’t like this. Or he did. It was hard to tell anymore. Was it freeing to be more honest, more vulnerable with someone you could trust? Or was it bloody terrifying?

“He’s ridiculous, fussy, funny, kind, and a bit of a bastard. I just- I’d- I fucking hate this. I just want to befriend him. Is that good enough for you?”

Maybe he was a bit more aggressive than warranted at the end there but Anathema didn’t say anything, just was quiet for a moment. Just as the anxiety was starting to itch beneath his skin at the thought of having pissed her off, she softly said “you really are sweet Anthony.”

“I am not! I shouldn’t have told you- I’m-”

“-yes yes, you’re scary and mean. What I mean is that’s really sweet. You should have more friends and I think it’s sweet that you want to befriend him.”

“Feel like a bloody high schooler saying it like that.” He complained, dragging his hands down his face in exasperation, careful not to dislodge the headset he was wearing. Two months of sporadic meetings with the man and he still hadn’t figured out a way to befriend him or make it all sound normal in his head.

In a mocking _‘there, there’_ kind of tone Anathema cheerfully added, “and you’re just as bad at it as one!”

“Are you ready to start the boss battle?” He asked a touch desperately, trying valiantly to move past all of this.

“Oh fine, you big ba- CROWLEY _What_ _the_ _hell_ _are you doing?!_ ”

“I’m not doing anyt-” his indignant tone spluttered to a halt as he dragged his hands away from his face to look up at his screen just in time to see his character charging in through at least three groups of minions and heading _straight_ towards the boss.

“Just because you want to run away from your feelings DOESN’T MEAN LITERALLY RUN STRAIGHT INTO THE BOSS BATTLE YOU-”

There’s a weightless moment where the blood in his veins freezes, his heart trips on the next beat, and his mind throws itself into a figure eight of panic trying to figure out _who_ found him. And then Warlock’s symbol pops up on his screen, three sixes connected by the stems to make a looping circle figure, and then Warlock’s voice itself hacks into their voice chat yelling “LEEEEEEROY _JENKINS_!” and all of the breath Crowley was holding rushes out in choked off laugh.

“Who the-” Anathema starts but Crowley cuts her off because he can’t help the feeling of pride that just swelled, “my little hellion! You’re getting better- you didn’t even set off any of my firewalls this time.” Not a peep, and that wasn’t easy to do, Warlock really was getting better in leaps and bounds.

“Little hellion?” Anathema mutters lowly, thinking, as Crowley finds all of his control over the computer is stripped away. The mouse, the keyboard, everything but the voice chat left open for him to still communicate with them. He’s pulling out his laptop when she goes, “oh! So this is one of the kids!”

“Not a kid!” Warlock retorts, offended, and this is good, good, because he’s distracted allowing Crowley some more element of surprise.

“Oh? How old are you then?”

“Sixteen!”

“ _Sixteen_? Who taught you Leeroy Jenkins?!”

“Nanny did!”

Bewildered, Anathema disbelievingly repeats, “ _Nanny?!_ ”

He’s not going to try and retake control over his desktop computer, a hacking tug-o-war over it would be fun but--

“Oi! Do _not_ kill my character Warlock!”

“Well hurry up and take back control of your computer! You’re getting slow in your old age, Nanny.”

“ _Slow?!_ Are you telling me you can’t keep a simple character-” _now surrounded and being beat on by no less than twelve minions and a boss_ “-from dying for five minutes? Some gamer you claim to be.”

His character’s health is dropping dangerously low and it keeps getting stunned and really Crowley needs to look away and focus on getting past Warlock’s firewalls, _which have gotten better, good boy,_ “and don’t think I didn’t notice you not helping Anathema!”

She laughs, “I’m just enjoying the show, _Nanny_.”

At the same time Warlock and Crowley both make noises of objection to that.

“-guh-wah- _Anathema!_ ”

“ _Hey!!_ Only _I_ get to call Nanny that!”

“Okay, okay!” She backs off with a bemused laugh, “can’t say I expected that.”

“Full of surprises, me.” Crowley snarked back, half distracted by hacking into Warlock’s computer and yet unable resist sassing back.

“Why are you guys playing this lame game anyways?” Warlock broke in impatiently, trying to hide the fact that no matter how fast he’s picking up the controls and powers, he might be too late to save Crowley’s character from an unfortunate death.

“Because he doesn’t have enough friends to play dnd with.”

“Excuse you! Where are all of _your_ friends to play dnd with, witch girl?”

“Oh my _godddd_ that’s even lamer!”

“Oh as if you didn’t pick the standard tiefling warlock the first time you played, little hellion.”

“ _Nanny!!_ How do you even know about that?!”

Anathema’s cackling in the background is the perfect soundtrack for this moment. He hits the last key and lets the grin take over his face as he seizes control of Warlock’s computer at home. “You had your first game _online._ ”

“You spied on me?!”

“Nah. As soon as I figured it was dnd I buggered off, didn’t want interrupt your game with one of our wars.” Crowley paused, finally figuring out just what was in Warlock’s tone just then, “oh? _Wait_ \- did you do something embarrassing that I should find out about?”

“No!!”

That was a yes then. Oh what-

“God take back your character already Nanny!”

“Eh, I’ve got something better.”

“Wait- crap-”

“Language-”

“As if! Just- wait before you shut my computer down!”

“...alright. What?”

“My dad’s got this thing coming up and I may have left your business card with him.”

“May have?”

“Okay fine. I definitely left it. And probably forged a promotional email from you to him.”

“Warlock!”

“It’s fine! I swear it’s fine!”

As reassuring as that was, Crowley was still digging through the boy’s hard-drive looking for the evidence, “you don’t even _have_ my business card.”

“Noooo,” he drew out, “but, uh, it wasn’t hard to recreate. Not sure if I got the right paper but dad doesn’t really notice that kind of thing anyways.” A muttered, barely heard, “he doesn’t notice anything really.”

Crowley found it finally and took a moment to sit and look at it. Surprisingly, it was done really well. It matched his business card and website and could, actually, look like a real email from his business. If he was the sort to keep up with emailing. Newsletters were a bit out dated for him and honestly, most emails like that tended to be entirely too annoying to read so he figured he wasn’t loosing out on too much business that way. Though it _would_ ring as more legitimate for his business to have both to a rich snob like Warlock’s unfortunate father.

He’d been quiet too long evidently, because Warlock’s voice came through less confidently than usual as he asked, “was that not alright?”

He probably only meant well, and, well, it’s not like Crowley couldn’t use the business.

“Nah, it’s fine. You did a really good job on the email, almost looks like I could have sent it myself.”

He could practically hear both the relief and eye-roll over the headset from Warlock. “ _If_ you ever sent emails you mean.”

“Eh. Outdated. Anyways, when’s this event? Hold on- does this say- it says I’ll set up and arrange the flowers on site!”

“Uhhh… Yeah?”

Crowley groaned, “no no, I’ll figure it out. ‘s just a pain to do by myself.”

Anathema, sensing a weak point, jumped in, “maybe you should hire someone to help you out at the shop then.”

Crowley groaned, “not this again Ana...”

“Don’t call me Ana and _yes_ this again. I don’t understand why you feel the need to work yourself to the bone in that place by yourself.”

“I’ll call you Ana all I want if you’re gonna keep beating this dead horse. I don’t trust anyone else with the plants! Some of them are delicate and I don’t need any clumsy fingered dolts bruising them or-”

“-or harming them or blah blah _blah,_ just get someone to help you transport them then! Or just run the cash register and not touch the plants!”

Crowley groaned.

“Yeeeah, I’m gonna go now,” said Warlock, the son of two parents who didn’t really get along and often fought.

“Ah, shit, sorry Warlock. Not a real fight, just a...”

“disagreement,”

“Disagreement. We’ve been through this debate a hundred times and Ana doesn’t know when to stop-”

“-Only because you don’t know when to give in!”

“ _Anyway!_ It’s after 11pm on a school night, shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Well you _see_ -”

“Goodnight little hellion!”

“No- wait!”

A moment of silence and then Anathema asked, “did you just shut down his computer?”

Crowled hummed a deviant agreement before adding, “and all his lights and phone.”

She was quiet for a moment. “That really _is_ evil.”

“Eh. The phone’ll reboot in an hour and he knows how to unlock his computer- hey- wait a minute! When did my character die?!”

He stared mournfully at his dead character, had a moment of silence for his lost exp, and tried not to feel more betrayal at Anathema’s character hiding in the entrance of the cave than the boss and its minions standing over his dead body.

Anathema laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really having fun with the shenanigans in this story :3
> 
> This story won't be a slow burn but it also wont be a super quick love at first sight thing. Partly because they're pine trees and it's hard to take them out of that forest and partly because I wanted to write a Demi Crowley. I'm Demi and I love to see fics with Demi characters because I don't find them all that much in media or fics (tho that has been changing recently for the better!) and, well, write what you want to read and all that. :D
> 
> Slight? Spoiler?: I can promise that they get together during this story tho! And that it doesn't just end when they do get together. I want to show them being ridiculous and in love <3 And also there's that pesky plot that y'all will be seeing more of soon >.>


	4. I know I only buy plants I end up killing from you, but we’re friends right? Delightful. So. I had a terrible awful day and-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the awesome Tarek_giverofcookies 
> 
> Y'all's comments have been so lovely! I'm so glad y'all like this fun story and that you're staying along for the ride!

The next time Aziraphale saw him was not because of a dead plant, though the poor thing _was_ looking rather dicey the last time he had checked in on it, but because he’d had a rotten day. Followed by a terrible night, only to wake up even more peeved the next day after being unable to sleep more than fitfully. Memories of that awful day buzzed around in his head incessantly only making his mood curdle even more.

He’d had some more than unpleasant intruders that had barged in, souring a rare book deal he’d spent _months_ setting up, and kicked up a sizable fuss about matters Aziraphale has less than no desire to revisit, and the whole exchange had left him rather vexed.

Tracy, a lovely woman with a quick wit, was away on her honeymoon and as a new (if you count five months as new _)_ resident of Soho and perhaps a bit of a recluse, his only other friend in the city (excluding book dealers of whom he had no wish to talk to as he was currently) was Crowley. Crowley was also possibly the only other person who might be awake at this hour. He _did_ run a flower shop after all.

It's not until Aziraphale is juggling two hot disposable cups into one hand/arm to pull open the door to the flower shop only to be met with locked resistance that he realizes he doesn't _actually_ know what time the flower shop opens at. It had just always been open any time he came by so he assumed... well, _hm_.

Looking at the unfamiliar door, unfamiliar in that he'd only really ever saw it propped open and never closed, he looked for any sign of hours. There was a window in the middle of the top half of a door with a sign that simply said "closed" without offering anything else.

Aziraphale frowned.

Well. Perhaps he was setting up but not quite open and wouldn't mind a coffee to start his morning. Mind made up, he knocked on the door "Crowley? It's me, Aziraphale."

It was just as his eyes caught sight of the white etched words on the window "closed Mondays and at 6pm" _w_ _hat no opening time?_ that the door flung open forcing him into a hurried two step side step maneuver to keep from having his nose unbeautifully bashed in.

Still juggling the cups and his balance he was further unprepared to look up and see Crowley in quite the state. For one, his sunglasses were jammed haphazardly onto his face, and for another he looked rather spooked, body language tense as if preparing for something terrible. Being so close Aziraphale could see Crowley’s pulse hammering in his throat and that new information had his gaze snapping back up to his face. It’d been a while but he’d seen that posturing before.

Putting on his most charming smile Aziraphale politely ignored the panic Crowley was shoving down, and the way his body was teetering on the edge of the _fight_ from his fight or flight response. Aziraphale would have taken a step back to give him some breathing room if he hadn’t thought that it would spook the dear even more. Instead, smile still intact even as he took in other details he had overlooked, _a small white cord painted to match the door frame it sat against,_ _shoulders squared and braced for impact,_ _arm out of view likely holding some kind of weapon,_ he said “good morning Crowley. I brought coffee.”

Crowley blinked, adrenaline rushing out of his body evident through the sagging of his shoulders and spine. Something softly clunked against the marble floor out of Aziraphale’s sight, most likely wooden from the sound it made against the ground.

“Ah- I- you- ngk,” Crowley drug a hand down his face, weariness evident in every line of his body. “C’mon in,” he finally settled on, moving out of the way for him to come in.

Aziraphale smiled brightly at that. “Thank you dear. I’m afraid I’ve come before the shop opened, haven’t I?” He politely ignored the baseball bat laying on the floor beside the door instead focusing on other details he failed to notice before and realized Crowley was in a pair of black silk pajama bottoms with a hoodie hastily shoved on. “Oh, oh my, I’m terribly sorry. I’ve interrupted your sleep haven’t I?” 

Before Aziraphale could fret too badly about showing up not only unannounced and before the shop opened, but also intruding during when he was clearly sleeping, Crowley waved him off. “Nah- I mean yeah, but I should get up soon anyways for the shop.” He paused  after re-locking the front door and peered through the  gaps in the shutters over the large windows in the front of the shop and grumbled seemingly to himself, “what time  _is_ it anyways?”

“Ah.” _Whoops._

Crowley turned rather slowly to face him, the exaggerated movement something like a horror flick would have.

“Well, hm, well it’s probably around,” what wouldn’t be too much of a stretch? He got up around 4 but the cafe didn’t open until 7am and it probably took him about five for the non-existent line and another twenty to get here so, “quarter to eight?”

“ _Ughhhhhh,_ ” Crowley let both hands drag down his face, knocking his glasses askew until he caught them as they slid off his face.

As cheerfully and encouragingly as he could Aziraphale reminded him, “I brought you coffee!”

“Alright, alright,” Crowley gave in and before opening his eyes he replaced the sunglasses on his face. “Let me just - _yawn-_ get us some chairs. Here, follow me.”

Aziraphale followed him to the back of the shop where the cash register was and waited by the counter on the stool Crowley had pulled from behind it for Aziraphale while the man disappeared into the back room of the shop.

He returned with a wheeled chair he then plopped down into with another yawn but shot Aziraphale a grin before he could apologize. “You said there was coffee?

“Oh, yes. Yes of course, here you go my dear.”

Crowley paused for a moment when taking the coffee from Aziraphale and for a moment he worried that perhaps he should have gotten him tea or something else. But then Crowley gave him a grateful smile and sat back in his seat, cradling the coffee between both hands as he brought it up to his face to take a deep breath.

“Mm.. Smells like... plain black coffee?” He raised his eyebrows in question.

“Yes. Oh, should I have perhaps added cream or sugar? Only I didn’t know how you took it and figured if you liked it sweeter you’d have sugar but mayhaps I should have grabbed some of those packets...”

“Nah, it’s fine.” He took a deep drink, settling back as it warmed him up from the inside out, “s’good. It’ll wake me up.”

After watching him for a moment longer and determining that he did indeed mean that, Aziraphale allowed himself to relax as much as possible on the stool and enjoy his hot tea.

“So how come you brought me coffee?” Crowley asked after a moment before hastily tacking on a “not that I don’t appreciate it! I do. Just, uh, well, why?”

“Oh, well,” suddenly Aziraphale was unsure. It was one thing to come by right at opening and offer coffee with a smile and then ease into a chat about their week and quite another to have woken someone up from their sleep just to complain about your day.

Crowley looked up at him again, long spindly fingers wrapped snugly around his paper cup, looking all for the world like a snake basking in its heat what with the way his whole body curled around it, hoodie and all. One leg was folded up under him entirely while the other was propped up, foot on the cushion, knee nearly to his chin, like a man who clearly didn’t know how to sit properly in a chair.

“Oh?” He looked suddenly more interested and curious, “is it something embarrassing?”

“Ah, well, not exactly,” Aziraphale floundered for a moment, “more of, I wouldn’t have woken you up for it.”

“Pssh, not like I’m going back to sleep now. M’already awake.”

Yes, Aziraphale privately agreed, after the adrenaline kick he had got it _would_ be rather hard to get back to sleep now.

“C’mon, you can tell me.” Crowley grinned and Aziraphale gave in with a sigh as if this wasn’t what he had wanted to do all along anyway.

“Oh, alright. It’s not terribly interesting I was just... most vexed.”

“Oh?” Already Crowley was leaning forward in his chair like he actually cared what Aziraphale was going to say. Well. Who was he to deny him now?

“Yesterday,” he started, resolved to tell the tale now and gain a sympathetic ear to be upset together with, “I had the _most_ rude and inconsiderate guests who didn’t even come by for my services! They came in just to disrupt everything, taking up my time and just generally being a nuisance and worst of all, _worst of all_ , they scared away Mr. Dulaney!”

“Mr. Dulaney?”

“He’s this, well, rather... difficult rare book trader.”

“Difficult,” Crowley repeated with a small smirk growing on his lips before he raised the cup to his lips for a drink.

“Yes, difficult. He’s more than reticent to part with any book and in particular he has this first edition misprint of the bible, they call it the Wicked Bible this particular misprint, and I’ve been wearing him down for-”

“I’m sorry, the _what_ bible!?”

Aziraphale sighed, wanting to get to the good bits of his story already but relented, not all that unwillingly he found, at the sight of Crowley delightedly surprised.

“The Wicked Bible, for it’s misprint, it omitted the word ‘not’ in the commandment ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’.”

“No kidding,” Crowley breathed with fiendish delight.

Aziraphale couldn’t quite fight back the grin as he added, “there’s a fair amount of bibles all with different misprints, some as amusing as that one.” And then, since Crowley looked so interested and curious, Aziraphale launched into a long spiel about the different bible misprints and then on how a rare few misprints were due to mischief. Then that topic wound into how the monks who transcribed things before the printing press came along would often write in the margins revealing just how bored, mischievous, and scandalous some of them were which led into a conversation about the delights of illuminated manuscripts, even the ones without too much of the delightful commentary from monks.

By the time Aziraphale finally got back to his original story, with a not-so-quick detour about various frustrating, yet humorous in hindsight, interactions with the Mr. Dulaney, the sun was hot and bright in the sky.

When Aziraphale finally bid goodbye so Crowley could get changed and open up the shop, nearly the whole shop floor was basking in the bright warmth of the morning sun streaming in through the sky lights. Aziraphale felt lighter than he had in days, and almost as bright as the shop, glowing as he left with a smile on his face. He even found it easier to deal with rude customers that wrongly assumed his shop was a bookshop in the sense that he would ever _sell_ his books.

Perhaps he would bring Crowley a coffee early one morning again. Though this time he’d respectfully wait until Crowley opened up his shop for the morning.

....wait.

When _did_ he open the shop?

_Fiddlesticks!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively Titled: I had a bad day, please let me tell you all about it oh no, so sorry, didn’t mean to expose your anxiety and paranoia


	5. In which bad days are had, assumptions are made, and sweets always taste better with good company

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very sweet and silly chapter, and also my longest chapter for this fic yet clocking in at just over 5k! 
> 
> A small content warning, there are some descriptions of depression/feeling down and apathetic in this chapter. They are primarily right at the beginning and I promise there's a bunch of silly fun in this chapter and it ends on a happy note. (No seriously, these characters can be so silly sometimes!)
> 
> Nevertheless! Even though there is nothing heavy in this chapter, if you for any reason feel uncomfortable reading a chapter (any chapter in this fic) please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I will try to summarize the chapter without going into whatever the subject is that is an issue. <3
> 
> As always, this was beta'd by the lovely lovely Tarek_giverofcookies who has helped me multiple times when I was banging my head against writer's block.

It had been a bad day. In fact, there had been rather more than seven of them so far. He hadn’t opened the shop in three of them and couldn’t honestly recall the last time he’d stepped out of the building at all. Living above the shop, or rather more in the antique armchair in the back room of the shop, tended to have it’s own perks and disadvantages. The perks being that he didn’t really have to leave home to work, was constantly surrounded by books, and he never had to leave the building unless he was out acquiring new books. Unfortunately, these same perks were also the disadvantages.

It made the days when the fog grew thick and oppressive that much more harder. It was difficult to convince oneself to leave the building when instead he could just stay in working on commissions. And what if he missed a customer while out and about?

When his head felt full of cotton, and fatigue lingered in all his limbs, the quiet thoughts would slip inside. What harm would it really do to close the shop early? For the day? Why move from this armchair at all, he deserved a day off. He’s in the middle of a chapter and it’s raining out, no sensible fool would bring an old antique book to be authenticated or repaired in the pouring rain.

Three days into this he realized he couldn’t recall what the last book he just finished reading had even been about at all. It was as if he was eating food and yet tasting none of it. Stale and unappealing. The horror that books had become that for him.

It was temporary, he knew. He had figured out with help how to help manage this, but knowing how to do so didn’t make the actual doing of it any easier. It took another day of bargaining with himself before he managed to call up a friend. Unfortunately she was out of town, but talking to her still helped. She stayed on the phone as long as she could and before ending the call she gently suggested taking a walk through town, just to be around other people without having to talk to anyone if he wasn’t up to that just yet.

“Or maybe dearie, you should go see that florist friend of yours,” Madame Tracey suggested with what was surely a twinkle in her eye.

Aziraphale himself didn’t really feel one way or the other about it, instead of insisting Crowley was just his florist and not his friend he just hummed non-noncommittally. (Who would want to be friends with a stuffy boring older man like him? He knew what he was like and was content with it but others hardly liked it.) 

Failing to get the reaction she was hoping for made her stress again him getting out. Maybe visit that bakery he liked so much.

Instead he found himself wandering the city, and not too unsurprisingly, wandering into the flower shop and plant nursery, Garden’s Edge.

There was some sort of bee-bop playing in the shop, quietly at first and then increasing in volume as he wandered towards the back.

And then he heard it. Someone… singing. Not particularly badly but not especially well either. Though that may have been helped by the fact that the song they were singing to seemed to be more of a spoken song than the newer bee-bop Aziraphale’d heard in the shops downtown.

It got louder as he followed it all the way to the very back of the shop. When he reached the check out counter he could see the door to the back propped open as someone sang about… French novels and the absurd?

Aziraphale glanced around, but no one else was in the shop, so slowly he edged around the corner of the door to peek into the back room because surely the only person it could be was Crowley. As far as he was aware, Crowley was the only person who worked here. So it _had_ to be him. But singing?

A quick glance in and all he saw was a flash of black and red. A pity he didn’t carry any mirrors on his person any more.

Steadying his breathing again he looked around the corner again through the door way. He had meant it to be a quick glance again but he found himself stopping at the sight he had caught. It was indeed Crowley. Crowley in his black leather jacket and absurd snake skin boots, eyes closed as he sang into the end of the broom in his hand. His hips were… doing something? Moving in some way, perhaps this was a new fangled form of dancing, and his arms were gesturing grandly as he sang and moved about the room.

“ _-And some kinds of love  
The possibilities are endless  
And for me to miss one  
Would seem to be groundle-_EH?! Ah-AZIRAPHALE?!? _”_

Aziraphale startled, nearly fell from his precariously balanced position, but Crowley was worse, his eyes having opened as he turned about the back room mid spin, he faltered, eyes landing on Aziraphale and broom flinging from his hand. It crashed into a large iron shelving unit that rattled dangerously and sent Crowley lunging in that direction to catch some of the pots that had rattled right off the edge.

“Oh dear,” he rushed forward to give Crowley a hand, “terribly sorry to frighten you. What can I do to help?”

“Wah-gah- huh??”

Aziraphale bit back a smile, he was rather adorable when flustered. His face was turning red, his eyebrows high on his face in confusion and disbelief, his arms fluttering around in nervousness and nearly dropping the pots he had managed to catch.

“Here,” he dipped down and picked up some of the pots scattered on the ground. Thankfully most of the ones that fell seemed to be the cheaper plastic ones. Temporary pots for young plants or plastic pots made to look like stone.

Straightening back up, arms full of (thankfully clean) pots (just think of what would have happened to his coat) he smiled at Crowley. It was a bit more customer service polite smile than the genuine one he’d felt earlier as the fog settled back in, but he didn’t want Crowley to feel as if it was his fault. “Where shall I put them?”

After a string of unintelligible sounds, Crowley gestured towards a table slightly helplessly. He croaked out a thanks, plopped his own load down and stared at the table for a moment.

Just as Aziraphale was starting to sink back into that state where he felt rather detached from everything Crowley’s head snapped towards his.

“Uh… how.. how much of that did you hear?”

“I couldn’t really make it out until I got to the back somewhere around something to do with filthy french novels and the absurd?”

Crowley’s blush renewed itself, darkening in color and then spreading down his chest and up to his ears. It was adorable.

“Y-you can’t tell anyone!”

Aziraphale cocked a brow, slightly amused but mostly confused. Perhaps that was the fog again- maybe it had obscured something that would make this make sense.

“About what dear? You singing?”

“No! I mean yes, that too, but no the-uh...” Crowley gestured in an _extremely_ un-illuminating way.

“...I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

The strange half starts to words and sentences falling apart in Crowley’s throat sounded off again before he finally settled from his wild gesticulating to stare rather firmly at something on the other side of the room from him. “Can’t tell anyone I like that kind of stuff.”

Aziraphale was hopelessly lost. “...Singing?”

Crowley’s mouth twisted. “No-yes, well, I don’t care so much about that. It’s the...”

“...the?”

“thesingingaboutlovegunk.”

He blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“…. it’s the, whole, uh...” every word seemed to take effort, though for what reason Aziaphale had no idea, “it’s the love thing, okay?! I just- it doesn’t fit my image and people don’t need to know that I- that- people don’t need to know that!”

_Oh._

A smile twitched at the edges of his lips again, not enough to force the smile through the fog, but enough to make him feel a bit warmer. He took in Crowley’s defensive posture, the hot blush upon his face and chest, his burning ears, and the steadfast way he wouldn’t look at Aziraphale.

A bit softer and sweeter than Aziraphale had originally pegged him as.

He turned the smile begging at his lips from something too soft and fond into something more benignly friendly. “Of course.”

A beat of silence and then Crowley finally turned his head back towards Aziraphale’s, shoulders hunched up by his red ears. “Yeah?”

“Of course.”

There was a beat of silence before Aziraphale found his mouth speaking quite without his permission. “So. A secret romantic then?”

Crowley just groaned in dismay.

“Did you come here just to mock me?”

The smile slid off his face. He’d meant to reply with something funny, or a bit teasing, but now that he was reminded of the real reason he’d stumbled across this scene, things didn’t seem as funny as they were a moment ago. Still, he knew wallowing in it wouldn’t help matters, so he tried to marshal himself back up to that trusty customer service smile and said, “oh, I was just out.”

He didn’t even realize he was avoiding eye contact with Crowley until the man side stepped back into his vision, leaning down a bit to try and catch his eyes.

Crowley hummed, rocked back on his heels, bit his lip, seemed to cast around for some words and finally offered up a, “wanna talk about it or not talk about it?”

Aziraphale’s eyes rose to meet his. He hesitated.

Crowley gave him a wry sort of smile, dusted his hands on his jeans, then clapped them together to make a loud sound that startled Aziraphale. “Right! Let’s go then.”

Aziraphale blinked, watching Crowley sway right out the door and into the main shop. Following him a bit bewilderingly he echoed, “go?”

“Yup. Going!”

Crowley stopped by the front door, pulled Aziraphale’s still wet umbrella out of the stand, handed it to him, then fished out another umbrella from the stand for himself. It was still raining outside.

Crowley opened the door with a flourish, keys jangling from his pinky finger as he popped open the umbrella with his free hand and gestured to outside. “Out.”

Well. Alight then. ‘Out’ it was.

Aziraphale slid open his umbrella, stepped out, and watched in a sort of detached curiosity as Crowley flipped the sign to closed and locked up the shop. Then he turned with a grin and said, “not too far.”

Well. That explained one thing and nothing else. Still. Aziraphale followed him, noting distractedly that Crowley’s umbrella seemed to have ducks faintly patterned on it. The slick shine of rain highlighting the faded ink as the textures ran different than the rest of the unmarked umbrella.

A few blocks, some turns down some alleys, and they arrived at the shop front of a lovely little cafe bakery.  Aziraph a le stared at it before Crowley marched right up, ducks swimming in the rain above his head, and opened the door. He made a dramatic sweeping ‘after you’ gesture and  Aziraphale was surprised by his own quiet snort of laughter.

Walking in, the air hit warm and dry against his face, and the light was brighter than outside’s overcast weather, but dimmer than some of the more mainstream restaurants liked to have. He shook off his umbrella and left it in the umbrella stand by the door and took his first good look around the place.

The best way to describe it was that it was charming.

It had the standard bakery wide windows in the front of the establishment but  instead of just slatted blinds, there were also soft gauzy curtains  pulled to the sides and secured with a soft  tasseled rope . Aziraphale’s eyes  gravitated to the back corner of the cafe where there were two bookcases  set against each other  creating a corner , filled with mismatched books, and sat  in front of it was a squishy looking couch, armchair  set , and low coffee table. 

The shop had a few other tables set with soft seating  of the like ,  while the rest  scattered about the shop  were the more standard fair cafe chairs and tables. There was music playing quietly in the background, the colors of the cafe were soft and easy on his eyes, and there was the biggest set of two bakery display cases he’d ever seen in a shop so small. He could hear Crowley’s quiet chuckle as he gravitated towards the counter.

How he’d missed this place he’d never know.  _(Spoiler: it’s because he never leaves his shop unless it’s to go to Crowley’s shop or to go buy new books)_

He was looking down at the most scrumptious looking  assortment of pastries when a  young woman pop p ed up from behind a strange chrome contraption that Aziraphale c ould only assume  was used to make fancy coffees.

“Oh! Hi, welcome to Knead to Know, how can I- Oh AJ!”

Her eyes flickered between the two of them before a smile began to spread across her face wide enough to cause some alarm to Aziraphale. She propped an elbow up on the counter, set her chin in her hand, and grinned properly at Crowley. She had pink bangs.

“I _assume_ you’re not here for your usual? Or _are you_ and you just brought him with you today?”

Crowley, _completely_ oblivious it seemed to the teasing just shook his head and said, “Nah, I’ll come tomorrow for the usual. Today’s different.”

“ _I’ll_ say,” she agreed, raised her eyebrows and flicked her eyes towards Aziraphale who was finally starting to feel a bit of nervousness or embarrassment filter through the fog. It was hard to tell which was which.

“Yup,” Completely Clueless said, “so I just want my usual drink but get whatever he wants.” He gestured to Aziraphale with a tilt of his head before turning to look at him proper. “From what I’ve heard, the Brittney things are good and anything chocolate’s pretty popular.”

Behind Crowley’s head the young cashier rolled her eyes dramatically, mouthed ‘totally clueless’, winked at Aziraphale and then said, “chocolate’s only the most popular because of who you bring them to.” She faced Aziraphale again, smiled, and said “The Cheese Brittney _is_ good, and our baker has recently got on a kick of sponge cakes so personally I’d recommend the Tres Leche Cake.”

She pointed to each in turn. Both looked scrumptious but which would taste better right now? The moistness of the Tres Leche might be what he needed to chase his dry and crumbly feelings away but at the same time a Cheese Brittney with it’s flakey and crunchy pillow might be just the soft landing place he needs.

As he debated internally, he tried to shove away any distressing thoughts of if it would be as bland as his books have been, while Crowley chatted with the barista.

“Find anything your heart settled on? Or your taste-buds?”

At the barista’s question Aziraphale startled, he’d lost track of time while dawdling and had probably spent far too long trying to decide. “Oh! I, well, you see they both seem so scrumptious that it’s just so difficult to choose.”

Crowley hummed for a second then tipped his head to the side and asked, “why don’t you just get them both then?”

“Oh, oh wouldn’t that be too much?” Too greedy, too gluttonous, too excessive. How often had he been taught that pleasure had to be earned? What had he done to earn either of them, let alone two pastries? He’s only been stuck in his head, shop not even open, for days and-

Crowley shrugged, completely unbothered, and said “eh, one of life’s pleasures, issn’t?”

Aziraphale stared at him, derailed from his negative self-talk suddenly and jarred by it.

Crowley must have mistook it as an objection to what he had said because then he defended it with a “Wut? Don’t give me that look. Life’s about living for the good stuff, yeah? So get ‘em both. Enjoy them.”

A moment to process that and then Aziraphale gave a quiet acquiesce, “alright.”

“Yeah?”

Aziraphale mustered a small smile in return for Crowley’s crooked grin, “yes.” Turning to the barista, who suspiciously looked like she was trying to smother a too wide grin, he said “I’ll take them both, please.”

She let the grin out in full force, “yes sir, right away sir!”

“Ah... thank you. Er, how much will they be?”

“Oh, AJ already covered it,” she winked at him but he was too busy turning to Crowley and protesting to see it.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Crowley shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a sort of shrug with his shoulders, “eh, we’re friends, ‘s what friends do.”

There was a growing warmness in Aziraphale’s chest heating up, something fond and soft, starting to glow like a lighthouse in the sea fog. _Friends._ “Oh.”

Crowley flashed a small smile, a smile unlike the flashy smirks and cocky grins, before turning away towards the back of the shop. “C’mon, I know that book nook’s practically singing your name you big ol’ bookie.” And then he sauntered off, ears a bit pink at the vulnerability maybe, and Aziraphale was left, for just a moment, alone with that warm feeling. At being announced a friend where anyone could hear. Proudly, unashamed.

The warm feeling tentatively spread.

“I’ll bring y’all’s food and drinks in moment, go ahead and sit down.”

He startled a little, glanced at the barista to find her smiling and said, “thank you dear girl.”

She grinned a little then teased, “go on, he’s an impatient man if I’ve ever seen one though he doesn’t seem to mind waiting on you.”

Not quite sure what to make of that he made his way over to the table where Crowley seemed to have made lounging an art form. He was spilled all over the arm chair head turned to frown at the books on the shelves to his left.

Normally Aziraphale would be all over those books. Carefully going through the titles, trying to see what the people here liked. You could tell a lot about a person from the books they chose to keep. Though the rules tended to vary when it came to shops, you weren’t catering to just one person’s taste after all, but many. But even then, he found it an enjoyable little game to see if there were any hidden gems in restaurants like this. Sometimes places you didn’t expect to, would have a valuable or rare book without even realizing it. Even rarer still, they might have a book Aziraphale wanted to get his hands on.

But his stomach rolled a little when he glanced at the books, remembering the morning and his apathy for reading. He did not want to try again so soon. He didn’t want to pick up a book, expecting to enjoy it, or even hoping to enjoy it, and find it as bland and unenjoyable as before. No, it was simply best to wait. He didn’t want to be turned off of books for any longer than he probably already was going to be.

So he sat in the surprisingly comfy armchair, looked up at Crowley, and realized he had no idea what to say.

Thankfully, Crowley seemed quite reluctant to let an uncomfortable silence descend and instead jerked his head towards the bookcase and said, “would’ve thought you’d be all over these.”

Well. Not the conversation he wanted but, beggars and all that.

“Ah, perhaps later.” A thought hit him, “do you have a favorite?” even if he couldn’t get enjoyment from reading right now, perhaps he could still get some enjoyment from talking book tastes and just getting to learn more about Crowley. Crowley who abruptly closed up shop without warning in the middle of the work day and brought him here.

“Oh dear, was it really alright to close up shop? I hadn’t realized earlier...”

“Yeah. ‘S fine. Wanted to take you here.”

“But...”

“Eh, it’s raining. Had only one customer all day, so who cares if I take a long lunch break? Hell I could probably take the rest of the day off what with the downpour scheduled for all day. Was only cleaning when you came by.”

The warm feeling spread a bit. Heated up a bit more.

“Ah, I don’t think that’s quite true, dear.”

“What? No, you saw-”

A small smile bloomed on his lips, “I _saw_ you dancing and-”

“Nrk- nuh, yuh- you said you wouldn’t!-”

Aziraphale chuckled lightly, feeling a bit lighter, a bit less bogged down, “and I shan’t. Alright, tell me about what you like to read.”

The barista came by, delivering a tall drink to Crowley, the pastries and a plastic cup of water to Aziraphale. She bid them a good meal and left, turning to reveal a pony tail that ended with pink tips to match her bangs.

Crowley took a long sip of his drink, leaned back, and announced, “don’t read.”

Aziraphale, about to take a bite of the Tres Leche Cake paused, fork hovering mid-air, and stared horrified at Crowley.

“Pardon, can you repeat that?”

“I don’t read.”

“Wh-How- How can you not read? No, that’s not true- I’ve seen you read the labels of the plants and soil bags!”

Crowley’s head tipped back with a loud guffaw.

“Crowley! Don’t laugh at me, you were the one trying to pass off that you’re illiterate.”

A grin spread like wildfire across Crowley’s face as he tilted it back towards Aziraphale. He shifted in the chair, flinging one leg over the arm of it in a truly improper way, and dangling the other off the side. Honestly it was like the man couldn’t sit proper in _any_ chair. “Saying I don’t read doesn’t mean I’m illiterate Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale huffed. “Well, you sure took great pleasure in making me jump to that conclusion.”

“Naaah, honestly didn’t think you’d jump there. Just wanted to see what you’d do when I said I don’t read. And I don’t. Read, that is. I listen to audiobooks though.”

“Audiobooks?”

“Yeah. Letters can’t jump in front of each other in audiobooks.”

Ah. “Well, that’s still reading.”

“Is it? Could never tell. Everyone’s got a different answer.”

“Well, I consider it still reading. What’s your favorite book?”

Without hesitation, “the James Bond series.”

Aziraphale blinked, then a soft chuckle bloomed. “Yes, I can see that. Rather does fit you, doesn’t it? Flash, action packed, crafty, and full of gadgets.”

Crowley flashed him a grin, “you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Oh, not at all.”

“Alright. Your turn. What’s your favorite book?”

“Oh... Well... Hm...”

A few moments of thinking apparently gave Crowley his answer.

“Too many to choose from?”

“Rather. It’s like trying to pick a favorite food.” Aziraphale left enough time for Crowley to interrupt before saying, “I admit, I was expecting you to jump right in and announce your favorite food just to contradict me.”

A hand wave and a sip of his drink, “ehh, not so much a food person, me.”

“No?”

“Nah. Do _you_ have a favorite?”

“Oh dear, well, if we’re talking desserts then it’s... hm, well, no, if we’re talking _pastries_ then it’s- but wait, no... drat. Is it still considered a favorite if you have five favorites?”

Crowley chuckled. “Same problem as with your books.”

Aziraphale hummed an agreement, finally biting into his nearly forgotten Tres Leche Cake. The cake was as moist as he had hoped, melting almost against his tongue, softly sweet.

He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes until Crowley inquired about how it was.

“It’s good. Very good.”

And Crowley had smiled at that.

They talked quietly for a while after that. About light things, small things, interests and hobbies. Aziraphale found that Crowley liked to play online games with a friend called Anathema, that he enjoyed star gazing late at night (“gotta be out of the city though- too much light pollution here.”), and that as fond as he was of cats, that he was allergic to them.

“Been thinkin’ about getting a snake though.” He’d added as if that wasn’t one of the most unusual pet choices Aziraphale had ever heard of.

“A snake?”

“Yeah. They’re great animals really. Strong, elegant, some of them have the most brilliant color patterns too. I dunno, there’s just something about them that I really like.”

And after some thought on it, Aziraphale had smiled. “I think I might be able to see that. Perhaps if you do get one, you can introduce me.”

Crowley blinked at him, surprised as if he wasn’t expecting that and as if, maybe, he was a bit flattered and flustered by it. “Uh- okay.”

They talked about Aziraphale’s favorite plays, how he collects the playbills from them as his own sort of scrapbooking (“When I go back later and look at them, I can recall the play better, remember how it made me feel, reminisce... I’m sorry, that must sound terribly boring.” “No, not at all.”), and how he’s been searching to find another hobby to enjoy other than reading.

“Not that I’ll give it up at all! It’s just, I’d like another enjoyable activity to participate in, I think.”

“Makes sense to me. I’ve got plants and star gazing and video games.”

“It’s just, I haven’t been able to find one. I’ve tried pottery, which was far more messy than I anticipated, cooking, knitting, and bowling.”

“Bowling, really?”

At Crowley’s surprise he admitted, “a friend talked me into it. I wasn’t bad at it, it just wasn’t as... enjoyable as I had hoped. I’d have rather sat at home reading than gone bowling.”

“How long did you do it for?”

It was strange in a way, having someone be as curious about him and his hobbies as Crowley was. It was strange having what seemed to be a genuine friend. One who cared and was interested in him, one that had silly conversations over plays and quiet conversations in the back of a cafe over everything and anything.

“A season. She’d signed me up for the team and neglected to tell me until the first match. I didn’t want to leave them a person short so I finished the season with them while making sure they knew to find a replacement for the following season.”

Crowley tilted his head back with a thoughtful hum, the man was reclined the wrong way across the armchair. Head falling off of one arm, both his legs thrown over the other, cup held at a precarious angle.

“Maybe you could teach me some tricks for it.”

“For bowling?”

“Yeah.” Crowley scowled up at the ceiling, “don’t tell anyone but just about every damn time I go I land on my arse at least once.”

And now Aziraphale couldn’t help but picture it. And he was probably picturing it perfectly. Crowley was so tall and gangly and he didn’t seem to know how to use his hips or legs like everyone else so he could only see him going up to the line, trying to throw the ball while sweeping one leg behind the other like you always see the professionals or people in films do. And sweet Crowley with his swaying hips and long limbs, would probably overshoot and go sliding.

Aziraphale rose a hand to cover his grin. Yes, he could see how he’d go down.

“Oi. I can hear that.”

“Hear what dear boy? I haven’t said a word.”

“I can hear you grinning. Stoppit.”

Aziraphale nearly laughed. “You’re staring at the ceiling, and how would you ‘hear’ a grin anyhow?”

Crowley turned his head towards Aziraphale’s and brandished a bright grin. “Y’learn.”

The barista chose that moment to return with a refill for Aziraphale’s water and to ask if they needed anything else. After they declined she turned to go before stopping and turning back to Crowley.

“Are you still coming to pick up your order tomorrow?”

“It’s the 3rd Monday, ain’t it?”

“Just checking.”

Crowley pursed his lips, suspicious but unsure of why, “sure.”

After she had bounced off Aziraphale turned back to him and, because he was ever so lovely when flustered, teased “coming back tomorrow without me?”

Crowley blinked at him before spluttering, incoherent for a few moments before Aziraphale gave a small chuckle. “Relax, I’m just teasing.”

“Nuh-no, it’s- uh, guh...” He raked a hand through his hair, which was apparently a bad idea because he got it stuck in a knot halfway through and he started quietly cursing while trying to free his hand. Hand free and cheeks pink he crossed his arms with a huff and, not looking at Aziraphale, asked, “you doing anything tomorrow?”

Probably not. The fog was receding but he wasn’t sure he was up to customers just yet. “No, I don’t think so, why?”

“Uh, it’s, hm, easier to show you? Would you meet me here at 11 tomorrow?”

“Sure, but are we eating here for lunch or-”

“No. I mean, not that I’d say no to having lunch with you- just that- that’s not the purpose. Of tomorrow I mean. I- I get an order from here and take it to somewhere else.”

“Alright. And this somewhere else is...?”

Crowley had his head hanging off one arm of the chair and both legs slung over the other but just for this he twisted himself up, bracing his weight on one forearm planted in the seat to look straight at Aziraphale from behind those dark shades. And then he exaggerated the most dramatic wink Aziraphale had ever seen so that it was obvious even behind those dark sunglasses that he was winking. “It’s a secret.”

Aziraphale chuckled, “you wily thing. Alright, have it your way. We’ll meet here tomorrow at 11.”

Crowley smiled back. “Great.”


	6. Sweet Discoveries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Thursday _somewhere_. Right?? Right.  
> Beta'd by the fantastic Tarek_giverofcookies
> 
> Content Warning: This scene takes place in a hospital, but it's more about the visit than anything hospital related or injury related. There's no described injuries, illnesses, or medical equipment. If you're still unsure, shoot me a message or ask a friend to take a read through. :)

After swearing him to secrecy, grabbing two bakery-laden bags, and driving two towns over, the very  _last_ place Aziraphale expected Crowley to take him was the  Brugmansia  hospital.

“Crowley, what-”

“Shhh, it’s a surprise.”

Well it certainly wasn’t anything Aziraphale could have predicted so he supposed it was that.

Crowley strolled on in like he owned the place, hips swaggering all over like he forgot they were supposed to be attached to his spine. The receptionist looked up, did a double take and then sighed heavily, theatrically.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the infamous Crowley. And using the front door this time? That’s new.”

“Sugar-Cookie girl!” he greeted, grinning wider when her eyebrows pinched down in a frown, “just showing my friend around so I thought I’d use the front door for novelty’s sake.”

Her eyes flicked over to Aziraphale who, himself, was struggling to glance between her and give Crowley his best scandalized look. They couldn’t possibly be implying that Crowley snuck into the hospital in all manners of ways, could they? Her eyes caught his finally and she gave a wink, lips quirking up ever so slightly before she flattened them out again when she looked at Crowley.

“How.... very regulation abiding of you.”

“That’s me!”

“Uh huh. And you remember the regulation about no outside food or drinks being permitted?” Her eyes blatantly stared at Crowley’s arms laden down with two large bags of pastries. Two large bags of pastries with the cafe’s logo emblazoned across the front of the bags.

Unrepentantly, and to Aziraphale’s mounting horror, Crowley grinned and cheerfully said “Yup! Sure do. No outside food or drinks. Yup. Remembered that one.”

Finally her veneer cracked and Aziraphale, to his great relief, saw a small slip of a smile break through before she rolled her eyes. “Oh, alright, since you did us the honor of coming in through the front door today I guess I’ll let that slide.” She motioned for Aziraphale to come over and asked for his ID and to stand for the picture, “hope you can handle that one, Crowley’s a right handful.”

“Oi! Excuse you, I’m _two_ handfulls!”

Sugar Cookie girl managed to turn her head away from Crowley before the smile broke out in full. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth for a moment before being able to shake off the need to laugh. She faced Aziraphale and deadpanned, “see what I mean?”

A quietly amused smile, “I do, and I shall.”

She gave him a smile, ignoring the ranting Crowley, and keyed in the last of Aziraphale’s information. “Pronouns for the badge?”

Aziraphale blinked, “oh, he/him I suppose.”

She looked up at his uncertain tone, “don’t have to add any if you don’t want.”

“Oh, no, it’s quite alright. Just wasn’t expecting it I suppose.”

She shrugged, typed it in, printed his sticker badge and slid it over to him. She glanced at Crowley, “pronouns?”

“Ehhh, he/him today’s fine.”

Two things were obvious as Crowley skillfully led them back through the winding halls of the hospital. 1. This hospital clearly specialized in pediatrics if the way the walls were covered with bright colors, crayon drawings, and cartoony bulletin borders like what you’d find in a grade school class room. 2. Crowley obviously visited enough that he knew his way around confidently and that he had a reputation for sneaking? In? Goodness.

They rounded a corner that led to what looked like a recreational room from their view down the hall. It had large windows displaying a small tv, some various toys, puppets, and a small crowd of kids. All of whom, upon the door opening, looked up and _beamed_.

Choruses of “Crow Crow!”, “Miss Crow!”, and “Mister Crow!” sounded off as some of the kids picked themselves up to run at him.

Crowley gave one of those rare laughs, and dodged the grappling attempts on his legs by weaving and swaying his way into the room. “Oi! Let me in you buggers, or no sweets!”

And it should have been scolding but it wasn’t, the kids giggled, gave him barely enough room to make it over to the other kids that hadn’t wanted to move, and the smile on his face about knocked Aziraphale off his feet. It was soft, and sweet, and wide, and absolutely _genuine_.

There’s a whirlwind of introductions, and Aziraphale promptly forgets half of the kids names while mixing up the half that he _does_ remember, sweets are handed out, and there are pleas for Crow Crow to join them in playacting.

They do like Aziraphale well enough, more so he believes because _Crowley_ likes him, and he must not be keeping his surprise and amusement off his face well enough because at one point Crowley elbows him in the side and teases, “oi, what’s that look for?”

He can’t help it. Aziraphale slides right into fond without meaning to and says, “I just think it’s rather sweet.”

Crowley’s face twists a bit at that, his mouth opens to object, but then a kid tugs on his arm and tells him the evil wizard is supposed to show up now so _come on_. Immediately he nods, already being pulled to his feet by the strength of a determined kid, turns his head, narrows his eyes and says “not one word.”

Aziraphale, saying not one word, just beams at him instead, smile wide and eyes dancing.

Crowley tries to frown at him as he’s dragged away, but the corners of his mouth keep twitching upwards like he’s trying to swallow back a laugh.

It’s later, after the kids have been mostly worn out and the sugar high has crashed, that Aziraphale asks about the different names.

“Oh. Well, I’m genderfluid so sometimes when I visit I’m presenting more feminine and sometimes I’m more masculine presenting. Some of the kids met me first when I was presenting one way or the other and came up with different nicknames. I don’t really mind, I think it’s kinda endearing. Don’t tell anyone I said that! But yeah.”

An oh, that made some other things make sense. Like how Crowley often wore a mismash of masculine and feminine styles of outfits. Or how some of his clothing seemed to be tailored sharper, and others less so. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Sss not like it’s a secret.” But Crowley was looking away, picking at a snagged thread on his skinny jeans.

“Yes, but still.” Could he have been nervous about how Aziraphale would react? It seemed strange to think of him caring what other people thought of him. Normally Crowley came off as uncaring of what others thought, loudly and proudly himself.

Hesitantly, just to comfort Crowley he told himself, he settled a hand gently over the one picking at his jeans. “I really do like this nail polish of yours dear.”

Crowley’s head whipped around to his, face pinking, eyebrows high above his glasses, mouth slightly agape as he stammered.

Feeling a bit mischievous, he picked up Crowley’s hand, careful to be loose enough that Crowley could pull away if he wanted, and tilted his hand from side to side, watching the nail polish shimmer. “It does such beautiful things in the light. However did you do it?”

“Ngk- guh- uh- it’s- it’s the nail polish. Comes like that.”

“Does it?” Aziraphale mused, shifting Crowley’s hand again before glancing back at his pink face and smiling. “Well, it looks wonderful on you.”

“Mngrk.”

“Pardon?”

“Nngh, thanks I mean.”

“You’re welcome dear,” Aziraphale blinked at the feeling of a small hand on his trousers and looked over at the kid who grabbed it. “Yes dear?”

“C’n you play make believe with us and be the wizard?”

“Well, I’m not very good at pretending, but I _can_ do magic.”

At that a chorus of excited calls for ‘magic! Magic!’ sounded off with a renewed tugging at his pants and he turned to give one of those, ‘so sorry but duty calls’ smiles and found Crowley already stifling a smile and waving him off.

So off he went!

He started with small stuff, after all, he didn’t have all his supplies with him so he’d have to make do with what he had. So many coins behind ears, a borrowed scarf appearing from his sleeve, disappearing stuffed animal bunnies. The kids seemed amused, even if the older kids seemed amused in a different way than the younger ones. He found a deck of playing cards on the bookshelf in the corner and was even able to pull off three of his magic tricks without most of the kids noticing when he fumbled that one time. Or two times.

It’s during the second try of the card trick that he looks up and finds Crowley just _staring._ Naturally, it’s at that moment that the cards he’s shuffling nearly spray everywhere in an unintended game of 52 Pick Up and he has to scramble to right them without being too obvious. Still, when he glances up the next time, Crowley only has a hand over his mouth and his eyebrows are high up on his forehead like they’re sitting at the crossroads of surprised and amuesment.

Eventually they _do_ have to go. Much to the disappointment of the kids, some of which had only showed up during the magic acts and hadn’t spent as much time with the two of them. (Equally disappointed were the kids who had to leave for appointments while the two of them were still there.)

Crowley promises to come back again while valiantly ignoring Aziraphale’s smile at that, and when pleaded to stay longer says he has to check on some packages that were being delivered today.

So the outing ends, as all outings do eventually, and they part ways after getting a small treat at the bakery for Aziraphale for ‘coming with me and putting up with the brats’.

And Aziraphale feels so light and happy that he only laughs and doesn’t quite manage to chide Crowley on calling them brats when he says it with such fondness anyway.

-

Aziraphale was practically humming under his breath, utterly delighted with the way the evening had gone. The familiar rush he got when preforming married incredibly well with Crowley’s laughs, and goodness if just seeing the way he smiled at those kids wasn’t the most delicious cherry on top.

He slid the key in the lock of his front door, already trying to plan another visit to Crowley. After all, he’d called them friends on several occasions, surely he would be amendable to more visits. And if that wasn’t enough a reason, there were always the sadly departing plants. Which. Speaking of...

Locking the door behind him and shedding his coat on the coat rack, he turned to try and locate his latest plant amongst his book stacks. Instead he found an envelope. On the floor at his feet. Which, made sense given the mail slot in the door, though maybe made less sense knowing he usually retrieved his mail from his box.

It was pristine white cardstock, his name embossed in gold script lettering on the front.

Aziraphale turned and went to the kitchen. He made a cup of tea. He set it on the side table by his favorite armchair. He went to collect a book and instead ended up circling back to the front door, staring down at the envelope.

As envelopes do, it didn’t speak. Audibly at least.

The cardstock of the envelope alone was expensive. It looked, and indeed when picked up, felt almost velvety soft in that way only expensive paper could achieve. The back flap of the envelope was edged in a shimmering gold metallic decorative trim. It was ridiculously ostentatious. Though knowing the sender it was only to be expected. An ego like his...

Aziraphale tossed the envelope onto his desk carelessly, it’s obnoxious pristine white paper a stark contrast to the muted and love worn tones of paper much more aged than it covering the desk.

Settling down in his favorite armchair with his newest acquisition, a second edition print of Pride and Prejudice (1st editions were _not_ for casual reading), he took a sip of his tea, opened the front cover, and began to read.

_It is a truth universally acknowledged..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed this sweetness and I'll see y'all next Thursday! :D


	7. Curses and Blessings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by Tarek_giverofcookies

“This is boring.”

Crowley did not even look up from the scattered pieces of her new camera system, instead just gave a distracted hum.

Anathema scowled, kicked her feet in the air again, and accidentally banged one heel off the cabinets of the counter she was sitting on. “Oh come on Crowley, you’ve been at this _all_ day.”

Crowley squinted at the wires, shoved her sunglasses up into a makeshift headband on top of her head and gave a hum of contentment at being able to see the color differences in the wires better without the tinted lenses in the way. “I _did_ tell you this is what I’d be doing today.”

“But all day?”

“Oh quit your whining, I could just kick you out. And get off my counter, it’s not a chair.”

Anathema blew a raspberry at her. "This coming from the Crow that can't sit properly in any chair."

"That's everyone else's problem."

"You're _my_ problem."

"Damn straight."

"Damn queer you mean."

They both gave a quiet huff of laughter at that before falling into a companionable silence for a short while. Anathema fiddled on her phone, debated on doing tarot readings for people on twitter, then glanced at Crowley and could not, for the life of her, see _any_ difference in the scattered pieces of technology around her. She groaned.

"You're killing me. How long are you gonna be at that?"

"Not my fault you invited yourself over despite knowing this is what I’d be doing."

"I really don’t understand why you think you need all this, let alone to reconstruct it all by hand."

"Don't trust anyone. Much less things you didn't build yourself. Spyware, shitty running speeds, space eaters... everything’s loaded with this shit."

At the mention of spyware Anathema straightened up and her voice turned more serious, "have they bothered you?" _Is that why?_

Crowley looked up. "Not yet. I mean, no. I just- ugh." She looked away, her face screwed up in a grimace as she struggled for words. "It's just... this is the first time I've put down roots since the-" here she did a nebulous hand wave in the air "-and I want to make sure I can stay here. Protect it. Not have to leave. Whatever- you know what I mean." She hoped.

"Yes. Yes, I know what you mean even with your extremely vague-" She mimicked her hand wave here with an eye roll, "can you not say it?"

Indignantly, " _I could._ "

Anathema arched an eyebrow in challenge.

Crowley scowled, muttering as if preparing for a normal person’s response to her next words and unhappy about all of this "the walls have ears Ana, you never know."

At Anathema’s skeptical look she bristled defensively, " _what._ "

"They're _your_ walls! And don’t call me Ana."

"Well _I_ didn't build them so how would _I_ know if there's anything in them!"

Anathema paused, leaned back on the counter, thought about it, and then said, “huh. I wonder if they’re listening to _my_ conversations.”

Here Crowley faltered, having forgotten for a moment that she was talking to _Anathema_ and not a normal person.

“I could curse your walls and their contents for you.” Anathema offered.

“ _Absolutely not._ You fried my security system the last time you tried to curse something in here.”

“Eh. You’ll be back.”

“...More like you’ll never leave.”

“Same difference.” Anathema hopped off the counter then reached over and yanked Crowley out of her chair by the shoulders. Crowley flailed a bit, trying to catch the piece she was working on and her balance at the same time with a yelp she would absolutely not admit to on pain of death.

“ _Anathema_!”

“Crowley!” She countered, “we’re going out.”

Crowley barely had enough time to try and set the piece down on a counter before she was turned about by her shoulders and steered towards her door. “Oi! Just what do you think you’re doing?! I still have-”

“You’ve been at this for literally all day. You need a break!”

“I don’t want a break Ana!”

“You need a break you work-a-holic and don’t call me Ana.”

“I’ll call you Ana all I want when you’re being an insufferable-”

Anathema gave one big shove to Crowley’s back and sent her flailing with a cheerful “Out!” and laughed as Crowley struggled to find her balance again before nearly running into the front door with her face.

-

Crowley peered closer at the “mummified alien hand” sitting in the gaudiest display case she’d seen yet. In this shop at least.

“Well... That’s a scam.”

Anathema looked over her shoulder to see it and scowled. “£560? God yeah, that’s a scam.”

Crowley blinked, spluttered, and turned on her, “no you daft witch! You can see the seams! It’s a scam because it’s fake not because it costs an arm!”

Anathema wandered closer, leaning in towards the case so dramatically that her nose was practically smearing smudges across the glass. “Hm... Probably an alien glove then.”

“A- guh- glove?! I- Ana _please_ tell me you’re joking.” One look at her face confirmed she was not, indeed, joking... Crowley dragged a hand down her face as she groaned loudly, in exasperation and muttered “of course you’re not.”

When she opened her eyes again she could see the shop keep making a bee-line for them and decided she was ‘nope’ing the fuck out of _that_ incoming confrontation. Crowley turned, grabbed Anathema’s arm, and hauled them both bodily out of the shop before she could even start with the shop keeper. Again. For the fifth time that evening. With the third shop keep.

“No more occult shops.”

“What? No. I was shopping!”

Crowley scoffed, “that wasn’t shopping, that was you harassing other occult shop owners and instigating arguments between the two of you over their prices and whether or not their curses were _‘ethically sourced’_.”

Anathema huffed and crossed her arms. “Well, it’s not _my_ fault that they get so huffy about it. They’re reasonable objections to their absurd prices.”

Crowley looked at her. Took a breath, tried to hold on to calm thoughts like maybe- _no, that’s not calm._ _Whatever. Just-_ Steadying her voice, she tried to calmly say, “Ana. You run an occult shop. A _competitor_ occult shop.”

Seemingly uncomprehendingly she said “yes...”

Crowley was loosing her grip and just about to _attempt_ calmly expanding on that when Anathema’s blank face suddenly cracked into a Cheshire wide grin.

“Oh- oh you little witch!” Crowley smacked her arm before devolving into laughter that Anathema quickly fell into. “You minx! Antagonizing them on purpose, oh I love you, you devious thing.” Crowley cackled.

Anathema grinned right back at her, “love you too you old crow. C’mon, let’s go, before they really _do_ call the cops on us.”

Crowley flushed, still unused to receiving casual affection, and forged ahead instead of addressing it and said, “not old. And you. You mean before they call the cops on _you_.”

“Me. And my charming partner in crime!”

Crowley’s face darkened a shade and she turned her face away, grumbling at both her reactions to fondness and to Anathema’s teasing. She grumbled under her breath, “not your accomplice.”

The knowing smile Crowley could hear in Anathema’s voice was not any less smug than being able to actually see it in conjunction with her next words. “You’re just mad because you didn’t think of doing it first.”

There really wasn’t a way to disagree without sounding petulant and also like a big fat liar so Crowley only glared and said nothing.

Anathema took this as the win that it was and laughed victoriously before elbowing her in her bony ribs. “Flower shops next?”

Crowley’s grin nearly split her face, “ _hell yes._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely comments! I'll respond to them as soon as I can.  
> You may have noticed this update was late.  
> You know how life sometimes has that annoying tendency to explode? Yeah. It's still exploding.  
> I'm going to try not to miss any other updates, but on my tumblr (mikaa-mina) I do post updates if I'm going to be delayed in posting the week's chapter. Also you can come talk with me about good omens!
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this week's chapter! :D See you next Thursday!


	8. A Day in the Life of a Newt(on Pulsifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta Read by Tarek_giverofcookies
> 
> Content Warning: This chapter takes place in a hospital where a mild injury is described and common non invasive medical equipment is mentioned. This happens at the very beginning of the chapter.

The lights are too bright, and Newt can’t quite hear what the lady in front of him is saying over the cacophony of beeps. His head also feels quite.... strange. He’s pretty sure that it’s not supposed to feel like it’s floating half a foot above his neck while also feeling like it’s stuffed full of cotton.

Some of the beeping suddenly stops, making it so much quieter in the ER, and Newt can finally understand what the nurse is asking. He tells her he thinks he’s fine, only he managed to hit something in the middle of the road with his bike and that sent him sailing towards the curb, which his bike tire hit at the wrong angle, and that quite firmly ejected him from his seat. And actually, he’s not at all quite sure _how_ he got here, or _why_ he’s here.

The nurse comes closer before he realizes she’s holding a tablet to enter his information in. By the time he realizes, it’s too late.

There’s a sound much like a mosquito hitting a trap lamp with a bright _Bzzt!_ and then tablet goes dark in her hands. Newt grimaces.

It snowballs from there.

She shushes his apologies and uses the flip hospital phone that they use now instead of chargers/beepers to call the nurse station and request a backup one. It, accordingly, powers off halfway through her phone call. She shakes it with a frown and grumbles about the board of offices being cheap with their equipment, turns a sunny smile on him, and brightly says “well, I’ll just take down the basics and get your vitals while we wait. Do you have records here?”

“Uh. Maybe?” _probably,_ “Which hospital is this?”

“The Brugmansia Hospital.”

“Oh! Yeah. I was born here. Uh. I changed my name though. Still Pulsifer for the last name though, figure there’s probably not too many of them around,” he laughs nervously, overly conscious of how awkward he is and how unable he is to do anything about it.

She still smiles, ever professional, and jots down his information. “First name?”

“Oh! Right. Sorry. It’s Newton now. Newton Pulsifer.”

“Thank you Newton, now I’m just going to take your vitals now.”

“Oh- I, uh, don’t really think-”

It’s too late, she’s come up to take his temperature with their new wireless, laser thermometer and it promptly errors out. It continues to error out no matter how many times she restarts it. The heavy seed of dread in Newt’s stomach grows larger. This is exactly why he tries not to go to places like this.

“I’m sorry. Uh, do you happen to have something maybe not, uh, electrical?”

She gives him a funny look for that and he shrinks back.

“Well. Let me get your blood pressure and o2 readings.”

Newt looks dubiously at the machine setup she wheels over to him. Miraculously, it goes okay when she wraps the cuff around his upper arm, and even when it starts. Everything avalanches when she puts the wireless o2 reader on him. Immediately everything in his room fritzes out, the lights even flickering before coming back, but all of the machines are still down or in the emergency boot up system restart.

“Oh bugger,” he sighs under his breath, quietly enough that the nurse fretting over all the technology can’t hear how resigned and unsurprised he is.

The avalanche continues when a nearby nurse ducks in and his tablet powers itself off. The smartwatch he’s wearing starts having three different alarms go off on it, and then there’s some shouts of alarm from outside Newt’s room that he’s really not sure that he wants to know what they’re about.

There are four people in his room now, in varying states of bewilderment and frustration, trying to figure out why everything’s malfunctioning in his room while also trying to get it back up and working. No one’s listening to Newt when he tries to explain that if he could just leave, it’d get better, but then, he’s mostly used to being ignored at this point.

More and more people trickle into the room, Newt spots the tech support guy he wished to be, frowning and scratching his head as he looks at everything. And then he looks at Newt.

A quick mumble about using the loo and Newt escapes out of the room, IV still attached to the weird metal stand and his arm but at least they’re not electronically powered. Just good engineering and reliable gravity.

He figures if he can put enough distance between him, and the rest of all that technology crammed into one small spot, that everything will boot back up just fine. And if not, Newt could write out exactly how to fix it.

So he heads to the loo, because now that he’s made the excuse, he figures he might as well try and also he’s betting on there being a whole lot less fancy technology in there. If only he could actually _find_ said loo. Or any loo, really.

He’s waylaid by a small girl about ten minutes into his wandering of the halls.

“Oh. Hullo there.”

The girl is missing three teeth, has brown hair, and is looking at Newt as if he’s the newest attraction in the city zoo. Under her stare, Newt almost feels like one.

“Wut’er you doing?”

“Er... looking for the loo.”

She looks at him, looks in the direction he was heading in, looks back at him and matter-of-fact-ly says, “you’re going the wrong way.”

He blinks at her, which she takes as permission for her to reach up and grab his hand and start pulling him in the other direction. Bewildered, he followed.

And thus began a brand new game called “Lead the Newt” which had a revolving cast of characters, all under the age of twelve, each insisting they knew where the loo was, and each hiding him from sight any time an adult employee came near.

This scavenger hunt of a game ended at, not a loo (which made Newt extremely grateful he didn’t _actually_ need one), but at a recreational sort of room. There was an old tv in one corner, an open treasure chest filled with costumes and toys, and a few bookshelves. The floor was spongy beneath Newt’s feat and looking down left him staring at brightly colored interlocking foam mat puzzle pieces.

For some reason, all of the co-conspirators find him funny, and really the only tech he might fry in here is a rather old tv that looks like it’s been outdated so many times it can’t recall if it’s outdated or retro at this point, so all in all... This is probably the safest room for Newt to be in. And certainly more interesting than the loo.

And that’s how he finds himself, an hour later, dressed in a paper hat of some kind (its supposed to be a jester’s hat) leaning against his iv pole, making elaborate gestures with his free hand, and telling terrible terrible jokes to a kid in a paper crown and to the amusement of the other kids around him. It’s most certainly a bizarre scene, but no one has commented on it as of yet and due entirely for the fact that the secondary game they’re all playing is _‘Hide the Newt’_ any time an adult wanders by. Closets, corners, and blankets have all been heavily featured by now in this game.

So Newt can hardly be blamed for jumping near out of his skin when, after telling a particularly _bad_ punny joke, he hears an _adult’s_ laughter. So he jumps, jerks, and tries to turn to face the voice all in one motion and ends up somehow practically hogtieing himself in his iv cord and going _down._

He ended up in a heap of limbs, metal pole, and iv cord wrapped all around him, and his glasses hanging half off his face. “Oh bugger...”

There was a snickering above him from the adult voice and the children alternating between giggles at his fall and joyful cries of _“Crow Crow!”_ , “ _Mister Crow!”,_ and “ _Miss Crow!”_. As Newt struggled to untangle himself, with the help of a few kids who both made things worse _and_ better in turns, the other children began pleading with the Crow? _Crow??_ to _pleeeeease_ let them keep Newt.

The stranger is crouching down to the kid’s level by the time Newt gets mostly upright, and they look a lot like they’re trying very hard not to laugh. “Now. However did you magpies manage to steal a whole person?”

Laughter sounds and they’re throwing themselves at the redhead and the two bags they set down. As the majority are immediately distracted by the prospect of sweets and the passing out of them, the stranger turns to Newt and raises an eyebrow high above dark sunglasses and says, “well? How’d they manage to kidnap you?”

Before Newt can respond the kids answer with excuses that pile over one another ranging from _“he just wandered in!”_ to the actually mostly truthful _“he was lost so we were showing him around!”._

“Oh really now?” they seem to be biting back laughter as they continue, “he was lost so you decided to help him by keeping him here?”

Some of the kids looked abashed while others look outright proud of themselves and to Newt’s surprise the stranger threw back their head with a short bark of a laugh before grinning as if proud of them.

Just in case he was reading the situation wrong, he’d done that with people more than a few times, Newt tried pushing through his embarrassment and awkwardness with an “It’s, uh, alright. Really. It’s been kind of fun, actually.”

“Ah. Yeah, they really grow on you.” The Crow glanced at the kids with a mischievous look, “like a fungus.”

Groans and laughter sounded before all of a sudden a shushing and pointing as an adult was seen wandering their way. Before Newt could blink they had him hidden out of sight shoved in a closet between some coats, puppets, and something slightly sticky that he had no intention of exploring further.

He could hear the somewhat muffled conversation of the kids pleading with The Crow to keep their secret before a new adult voice joined the conversation. The voices dropped away a bit, except for the nervous kids right in front of the closet _attempting_ to whisper between each other, before he can’t make anything out at all. He waits, nervousness beginning to creep in because just how long was he supposed to stay in the closet? Actually, about that, he’d really had enough of closets and hiding in them. Terribly stifling and awful and much better really to be out of them.

Eventually there’s the sound of foot falls coming closer and closer to the closet and for a moment Newt’s heart picks up, certain that he’s about to be found and get in trouble. Then the doors are opened and it’s the red headed stranger who jokes, “ready to come out of the closet?”

And Newt’s still full of nervousness and it expresses itself by making him immediately blurt out “already did that once really. Was sort of hoping to not have to do it again.”

There’s a pause where the red head stares at him and the realization that he’s said that out loud crashes over Newt who flushes hotly. “Oh gods, I said that out loud...” and then The Crow tilts their head back and laughs.

“Been there, done that!” They agree with a grin and reach in to pull Newt out. “C’mon, ‘parently they’ve been running a missing patient code for half an hour looking for you.”

Newt relaxed fractionally, “you figured all that out from the nurse in five minutes?”

“Nah. Heard about it when I snuck in through one of the back windows. ‘s right beside one of the break rooms.”

“Oh, okay, that makes- wait. Did you say window?”

But they were already talking to the kids, “Alright you mischievous little magpies, you had your fun but we need to get him back now.” A chorus of _“awwwws”_ and _“but!!_ _but!!_ _”_ s sounded off but The Crow continued on, “if he’s here, he probably needs some help to get better, and I’m sure once he’s feeling better he’ll come say hi again.” Here they glanced over at at Newt expectantly, so Newt nodded since it seemed expected, and then they continued, “alright, so say bye to...”

“Newt.”

The Crow stilled, tilted their head to the side and asked disbelievingly, “really?” as if they didn’t also have the name of an animal.

“Yeah.”

“Alright magpies, tell Newt bye.”

There’s goodbyes and promises to come back and right as they’re leaving the first girl that had caught Newt comes up to The Crow and, in a whisper so very loud she might as well be talking, says “you hafta be nice to him!”

“Oh do I now?”

She nodded furiously, “he doesn’t ree-lize his jokes are _re_ _eee_ _ally bad!_ ”

The Crow seemed to choke on something before spluttering into a laughter the kid shushed them for.

“Sorry, sorry,” they managed, fighting back their grin and not looking sorry in the least as they chanced a quick glance at Newt.

The girl frowned, “you’re not sorry at all!”

“I am, I am!”

She looked unimpressed but when bribed with an extra pastry she let it,  and them, go.

They’re on their way back to the nurse’s station (Newt didn’t even know what room they put him in) when he breaks the silence to ask, “is your name really Crow?”

“To the kids, yes. You can call me Crowley.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you Crowley. Did you really come in through a window?”

Crowley grinned at him, “trade secret.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life has stopped exploding and now we only have the mild tremors to deal with, so I'm hoping to get back to writing and build my buffer back up! :D  
> Thank you all again for all the lovely comments <3 they're really awesome and they make me so happy and also excited to work more on this fic! :)  
> Have a lovely day y'all. <3


	9. Oh, how does it go again? That "O" moment?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by Tarek_giverofcookies  
> (We're on every other week updates until I can build a buffer back up! Check my tumblr (Mikaa-Mina) for more updates as well as some odds and ends of writing that don't make it to here.)
> 
> Enjoy~ <3  
> :)

It goes like this:

" _How?_ " Crowley looked disbelievingly at the dead plant and Aziraphale nearly picked it back up to shield it defensively against himself. He didn't though, because as bad as he felt about it he could tell at this point Crowley wasn't really mocking him. Even if she had to fight the corners of her mouth from turning up in some kind of morbid delight.  
  
Aziraphale sniffed in an air of offense, "really dear, no need to make such a production out of it. I really feel quite bad enough as it is.  
  
Crowley looked up from her fluttering around the pot, her head still tilted down but her eyes peering up over the edges of her damnable persistent sunglasses, an eyebrow cooked challengingly. Aziraphale, for all that he had discreetly tried and hoped to see them, hadn't yet. So he was caught off guard by the brilliant shade of light brown almost honey yellow that they were and the unique almost dripping of her pupils. He was mesmerized.  
  
Crowley scoffed, rolled her eyes, then stood straight up, fixing her glasses as she went.  
  
Aziraphale, himself, smothered the burst of disappointment that had flared when those golden eyes had been shuttered away again.  
  
"So. What happened with this one then."  
  
Aziraphale hesitated, unconsciously reached for his ring and then twisted it back and forth as he worried the words in his mouth. "Well, you see, I had to leave town for a week and I thought what with it only needing watering once a week that it would be fine. So I watered it and left but when I came back it was rather... well, rather like this, I suppose."  
  
Crowley laughed. That short bark of a laugh, delight reading in every line of her body and oh how Aziraphale wished he could see how Crowley's eyes lit up in laughter too. Did they sparkle with mischief, did the edges crinkle in delight, did-  
  
"Maybe it's not you, maybe your shop is cursed and it was never you killing them all along!"  
  
He startled, “now don't you insult my shop, dear girl! I'll have you know it's a very lovely shop and not at all, not at _all_ cursed!"  
  
Aziraphale hardly recognized that he was the very picture of affront. Hands on his hips, a disparaging frown mingled with a pout taking over his face, and eyebrows downturned.  
  
He hardly realized this because he was too busy being struck silent by this brand new smile blooming on Crowley's face. It seemed to have an edge of self satisfaction, of delight, but overwhelmingly it seemed, and Aziraphale could hardly believe he was thinking this, heart fluttering and all, but overwhelmingly it seemed _fond_.  
  
Aziraphale's heart skipped a beat, feeling a tad odd in his chest, as a returning smile burst through his annoyance and giving in to it with a huff he said, "alright, alright," a pause as he debated before relenting again, how could he not with that strange and new smile on Crowley's face, "I might... have forgotten to water it before I left."  
  
He was rewarded with another short laugh, the edges a bit softer for the interference of that new smile still on her face, before Crowley turned around to pick up a pot from behind the front counter. Like she'd picked it out ahead of time for Aziraphale. Like she'd placed it aside, _saved_ it. Like it was put behind the counter so there was no chance anyone else could mistakenly buy it. _For him._

Crowley turned and settled a, surely beautiful but Aziraphale was too distracted by Crowley's face so he wasn't sure, couldn't be sure, beautiful plant on the counter between them.

Aziraphale’s heart seemed a bit light.

-

It goes like this:

They’re arguing over plant care and the apparent lack thereof.

“Really. You ought to just set an alarm at this point to remind you to water them.”

“I’d never hear it all the way in the shop.”

“Er. What?”

“My alarm clock. It’s all the way in the bedroom so I don’t know how you expect me to be able to hear it out in the shop.”

“No. No! The alarms on your phone Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale blinked. “My phone? Oh!” And as he pulls his phone from his pocket, the linty mostly forgotten thing that it is, Crowley starts making the most amusing if confusing noises.

“Is… Is that a- a- oh my God it’s not even the smart version is it? I didn’t even know they still made those!”

And Crowley’s face is so delightedly surprised, such a charming thing, that Aziraphale can hardly put together the affront at his incredulous tone of voice. He, with some difficulty, pursed his lips and haughtily flipped open his cellular phone. “I find,” he started, trying terribly hard not to crack into a grin at Crowley’s antics, “that it works just fine, thank you. It’s plenty smart as it is.”

And then Aziraphale couldn’t hold the laugh back any longer because Crowley’s face broke into the largest grin as he threw his head back, cackling with delight.

-

It goes like this:

Aziraphale pursed his lips in what was decidedly not a pout, as that would be terribly childish, and primly said "there's really no need for all that."  
  
Crowley only grinned, eyebrow cooked, and drawled "no, no, I really rather think there is."  
  
Aziraphale huffed.  
  
Crowley's grin grew as he gestured widely with his hands at the poor thing on the counter that Aziraphale had brought in, "I mean, it's practically an anniversary. The tenth dead plant."  
  
"Oh really Crowley, _must_ you? Really?"  
  
Crowley practically glowed with delight, his grin bright and sparkling with fiendish delight. "Really."

-

It goes like this:

Crowley’s got his sleeves rolled up, hands deep in the dark soil, a broken sort of humming coming from under his breath, and his hair pulled back in a low tail while fine whisps of fire red strands stick to his forehead and fall forward into his face.

There’s a twist of his hand and Aziraphale, who can’t quite remember when he came in to the shop, spies the airbrush soft edges of a colorful tattoo on the inside of that wrist. It looks like smudges of blues and purples but really he only got the faintest glimpse of it before Crowley turned his hand away again, long boney fingers exactingly gentle with curling roots and green stems.

He’s so interested in seeing the rest of that tattoo, so distracted by bared forearms and wisps of escaped hair, that Aziraphale quite forgot what he had come in to say.

He doesn’t remember when Crowley catches sight of him and turns his head to grin at him, in fact, he feels as though it’s even worse. He’s forgotten the entire day. Instead it’s filled with that smile and those forearms and the wonders about a tattoo that Crowley’s already rolling his sleeves over as he comes to greet Aziraphale.

His chest is tight and light and he’s just realized that at some point a silly smile had stolen across his face without hardly a say-so.

-

It goes like this:

It was a perfectly normal day. Not blindingly cheerful and not dreadfully stormy. The kind of weather that no one commented on and that was terrible for those bad conversation starters about the weather.

Aziraphale himself was having a normal, neutral, day. It wasn’t grand but it wasn’t terrible either. It simply was. He was a bit excited, but that was normal too, after-all, he was on his way to Garden’s Edge to see Crowley for his lunch break. He’d found after too many days hunched over his desk, his eyesight blurring and his steady hand beginning to shake from all the fine repair detail, that getting out once in a while was beneficial on many fronts. For one, it helped to look at things further away than two feet, for another, bantering with Crowley often led to snips and laughter.

The point was, the point was (dolphins) that it was a perfectly normal day and thus Aziraphale wasn’t expecting anything other than a normal day to continue to happen.

It happens like this:

Aziraphale’s distracted by thoughts of crepes when he arrives at the shop. He enters in, distracted, still thinking of what bakery might be best to inquire about some sweet crepes when he heard Crowley’s new motion sensor do a doorbell chime sound. (He still has no idea what was so inadequate about the normal kind attached to a door but when he asked Crowley had only given him an odd look before changing the subject. A sore spot, clearly. Though of what was a mystery.)

The sound was a bright chime and at it Crowley’s head popped up from where he was looking down at a plant with a customer. At the sight of Aziraphale, a bright smile _bloomed_ across his face, and he sounded so downright joyful when he called out Aziraphale’s name in greeting that his heart skipped.

“H-hello dear.”

“One sec, I just gotta-” he turned back to the quietly bemused customer and finished up their order. The customer looked between the two of them a few times, not that oblivious Crowley noticed what with his ducking behind the counter for something, before giving a grin and a wink to Aziraphale who’s insides trilled oddly. Then the customer’s gone and Crowley’s popping back up from behind the counter with a triumphant “a Ha!” and a squarish object wrapped in brown paper.

Hopping over the counter, instead of walking around it like a sensible person, Crowley trotted up to Aziraphale, practically thrumming with nerves. He rocked on his heels, jiggled his knee, and his smile kept twitching larger.

“Look what I just found!”

And with that he shoved the parcel, clearly a book- Aziraphale would know the heft and weight of a book anywhere-, into Aziraphale’s hands and impatiently gestured for him to tear into it.

“For me?”

“No one else here, is there?”

“Oh hush you.” but his heart was soaring. A gift, _a book_ , for _him_. Goodness.

He carefully peeled back the paper and then froze. Staring up at him, impossibly, was a leather bound, silver edged copy of Elbaffeni by Lien Nemiag.

“You… _found_ this?” Reverently he traced his finger across the engraved title.

“Yeah, yup, sure did. Found it in my attic.”

Which is absolutely a lie because 1. Crowley doesn’t have an attic, and 2. Good Lord this book was hard to find. It was hardly expensive, not many collected it, but it was the third book in the series his grandmother had read to him as a child. He’d been looking for this one, it was the only one he was still missing from his collection, and Crowley must have heard him complaining about it one day. Must have heard him say he was missing it, and then went and looked for it.

His chest tightened and his eyes felt a bit hot. He eased open the cover, eyes taking in the patterned end-covers before carefully turning to the copyright page. A third edition. Good Lord this man.

“Do you… not like it? ‘Cause I could get- I mean find- I mean-”

He looked up at Crowley, sweet Crowley who was chewing on his lip, anxiously peering at him, hands shoved deep in his pockets to stop their fidgeting, and subtly rocking back and forth on his heels. And oh, his heart just thrummed in his chest like a humming bird, light and quick, and utterly in-

Oh.

_Oh._

Before he could think it through he was pulling Crowley, sweet thoughtful Crowley, into a hug. “Oh my dear boy, I love it. Thank you ever so much for finding this for me.”

Crowley went stiff at first before practically melting into the hug, long arms wrapping carefully around Aziraphale as if disbelieving of the contact. And oh perhaps Crowley was more of a tactile person than he  had originally thought. He seemed to melt into this like a long awaited reward. His breath tickled Aziraphale’s skin when he said “’course, glad you like it. Was hoping I remembered the right one.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow with a slow growing grin, “oh? I thought you said you found it in your attic?”

Crowley stiffened, “Uh.” and wasn’t he just as lovely when he sounded a touch panicked.

“Perhaps I should take a look around your attic,” Aziraphale mused relentlessly as Crowley started to stutter out excuses, “see what other gems you have hidden away and forgotten about.”

“I- it, nghhh it’s, uhhh-under construction.”

Both eyebrows raised at that and it was hard to keep the laugh from his voice when he repeated, “construction?”

“I mean- renovation!”

“Your attic’s under renovation.”

“...yes. Yeah. Yup. Sure is. Just, uhhh, started the other day. That’s when I found the book.”

“Hm. Well, perhaps I could help you with it.”

Crowley choked, “help me?”

“Yes, two pairs of hands make the quick work and all that. I can help with your renovations.”

“I- guh- that’s, uh, very niccce of you but, I don’t really, I mean, the attic’sss-”

Aziraphale pulled back, a fond smile taking over his whole face at Crowley’s lisp  slipping out  and at the poor boy’s stutterings. “I’m teasing dear.”

Crowley stopped, looked up at him, and expressed his displeasure at this with what he would call a glare and what Aziraphale called a pout. “Basstard...” But it was fond and secretly pleased. 

Aziraphale’s new revelation nearly tripped his tongue into saying ‘ _your bastard’_ but he caught it just in time. Oh dear. A new set of problems to keep an eye out for. Of which, would Crowley even-

Stop. Think about that later, first-

“Let’s grab lunch.”

“Yeah, sure, just let me close up shop.”

Aziraphale waited until he had done so and, as Crowley was locking up, said, “as thanks, lunch is on me.”

Crowley’s hand slipped and the key fell from the lock to clatter to the ground. He dove for it with a curse before saying “you don’t have to do that Aziraphale, like I said I just found it-”

Oh dear. Simply couldn’t be seen doing a nice thing just for the sake of doing it still.

“-yes yes, in the attic. But that you gave it to me at all is still a gift and thus, lunch is on me.”

“But-”

“No buts dear!” well, except perhaps his since it was ever so lovely and oh my, moving on! “I shan’t hear of it!”

Crowley stared at him before locking the door with a disbelieving echo of “shan’t” before turning and giving in, “oh fine.  I can’t believe you use the word shan’t in normal conversation. You sound like a relic.”

“Or a history professor.”

“Heard that one before, eh?”

Aziraphale smiled as they made their way down to  Knead to Know . “Oh, only all the time.”

Crowley hummed, hands shoved into his pockets, hips doing that strange sway they always did when he walked, and said, “well. I’ll just have to come up with some new ones.”

Aziraphale exaggerated a sigh. “From gifts to insults, whatever shall I do with you?”

Crowley grinned at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did coming up with it! <3  
> Ahh so happy with how this chapter came out and how far they've come and <3 <3 <3


	10. Soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by Tarek-giverofcookies

Disbelievingly, eyebrows raised, Crowley asked, “ _really_?”

And Aziraphale, killer of twelve plants, really couldn’t fault him for that, but nether-the-less leveled him with a faux insulted glare. “Of course!”

Crowley hummed, unconvinced.

“Oh really Crowley, I tell you, it’s still alive.” But Crowley only raised his eyebrows in challenge and Aziraphale tutted, “what do you want me to do to prove it? Bring it into the shop?”

Crowley grinned, “well, since you offered...”

He sighed.

-

Crowley looked down at the plant, eyebrows high above those dratted sunglasses. He whistled, turned the plant’s pot this way and that, leaned in close to see the stems and test the soil, leaned back, and murmured approvingly, “ _well done you_.”

And Aziraphale really shouldn’t flush at that, really, because it was a coin toss on if the praise was for him or for the _plant_ but his cheeks heated still and he couldn’t stop the preening if he tried. “Thank you.”

Crowley glanced at him, mischievousness tilting the edge of his grin no matter how poorly he tried to hide it, and teased, “how do you know I was talking to you and not the plant?”

He straightened his waistcoat, tilted his chin up, and primly stated, “we _both_ deserve it, dear.”

And like he thought he might, Crowley tipped his head back with a laugh.

He did so like the way amusement and happiness just _lit_ up Crowley’s face when he let it. It was happening more and more lately and Aziraphale couldn’t help but hope it was because of him, because they were close enough that Crowley felt he could, be happy that is, and _show_ it.

“Alright!” Crowley clapped his hands together, startling Aziraphale back into the present, into seeing his grin, “a celebration is in order!”

Aziraphale blinked. “Really?”

“Yup! Three week’s you’ve had her and not killed her yet. Quite the accomplishment!”

“Her? Wait- killed- now see here- and really, isn’t it a bit soon to be celebrating my ability to keep her alive?”

Crowley paused, gave an obvious once over of him, then said “Nope.”

He pursed his lips. “Now really, that’s-”

“-Uncalled for? You sure?”

“...”

“Thought so. C’mon, it’ll give me the excuse to take you out to a play I want to see.”

Aziraphale immediately perked up at the thought of seeing a play. He hadn’t had the chance to see one in a frightfully long time, movies just weren’t the same, and to see one with Crowley- “well, _alright_ , what play?”

The grin that came out to play was the one that came out whenever Crowley decided to be a right nuisance to everyone else for the amusement of himself, and sometimes, _if he was lucky,_ for the amusement Aziraphale as well.

“It’s a surprise. Meet me here at 8.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, trying to decide if this entertainment was going to be _at_ his expense, or _for_ his entertainment. “Oh I do so quite dislike surprises.” 

Crowley’s grin widened as he rocked back onto his heels, “c’mon! It’s a good surprise! Promise.”

He was not convinced, but then, Crowley’s eager to please smile and bright eyes tipping over the edge of those glasses did him in with a sigh. “Oh, alright, alright, you wiley thing. 8 o’clock you said?”

It was more bared teeth than a grin. Oh dear. “8 o’clock.” 

-

“You lied.”

As confetti rained down on them from above, getting into absolutely _everything_ and surely turning his hair into a riot of clashing colors, Aziraphale turned to Crowley and deadpanned, “you said I would love it.” 

Crowley only laughed, bright and loud and brash. The sound was lost in the noise of the cheering audience around them, but Aziraphale found himself fighting a grin at the sound of it anyways. He looked so un-self-concious, so relaxed, so at ease, so _happy._

There’s a piece of green confetti that’s stuck on his right eyebrow, contrasting nicely against the red of his hair, and shifting ever so distractingly as Crowley makes a silly face at him.

“I did not! I said it would be _good!_ ” 

“And it failed to be even that.”

“Well, there’s no accounting for bad taste I suppose.”

And Crowley looked so satisfied with himself, so proud and unrepentant, all bright obnoxious grins and elbows in the side when Aziraphale tried to protest, “oh come off it, you enjoyed yourself. I know you did.”

Aziraphale looked away, unwilling to give him the win he so sorely thought he had, pursed his lips and crossed his arms with a huff, “Oh? And just how do you know that?"

Crowley leaned in, a grin stretching his lips thin and lighting up his face, glasses slipping down his nose to reveal those beautiful honey brown eyes, his whole countenance like he’s about to share a whispered secret. And maybe he was. Aziraphale’s pulse was fluttering in his throat, the loud chatter of the audience around them seemed to fade, it was all like a terribly cliche movie and yet. And yet a strange sort of giddy anticipation rose in him, bright and bubbly like a good sparkling wine. Like the kind you snuck out of your grandparent’s liquor cabinet and daringly shared with a friend, hidden in the back corner of an empty room, giggling. A bright thing, a hidden thing, an anticipated thing.

The piece of confetti on Crowley’s eyebrow fell to his nose and for some reason Aziraphale’s eyes dropped from there to his lips completely unprompted. Crowley’s voice lowered, confidential, close, intimate.

“When you start to really enjoy something... you tear it to absolute _shreds.”_

Aziraphale jerked back, _when had he leaned in?,_ with a scandalized gasp, hand to his hammering heart. “I do _not!_ ” 

Crowley grinned even harder, if such a thing was possible, and Aziraphale almost hoped he strained something in his gloating.

“Oh you _doooo_ ,” his voice dipped into a sing song quality for a moment before he continued, “you critique it like nothing else, tear it to shreds, analyze it to death, and love absolutely every second of it.” He leaned in again, eyes bright, confetti all over his shoulders, in his hair, dripping down his face despite the rain of confetti having (thankfully) ended. “And what you did to it ten minutes ago? _Shreds._ ” And with that, Crowley upended and _entire handful_ of _confetti_ on Aziraphale’s head.

Spluttering with indignation he lunged after Crowley causing the man to scuttle back. He bumped into the lady who had spent half of the play disruptively muttering about something under her breath (not loud enough to be understood, but not quiet enough to be ignored entirely either) and she scowled and grumbled complaints that Crowley paid absolutely no attention to. No, those sparkling honey brown eyes were squarely on Aziraphale, his bottom lip caught between his teeth and his shoulders tensed in a look Aziraphale was beginning to recognize as one that heralded before disaster, _mischief._

A distraction was called for.

“There were plot holes Crowley! Ones so large a lorry could get stuck in them!”

“Oh but you loved their costuming!”

“Well, yes- but it was inaccurate! Completely inaccurate for that time period, all those ruffles and that-”

“-you _loved_ the ruffles."

“Well, yes, but-”

“And they’re college kids!”

“The could still do better.”

Crowley laughed again, falling back into one of the theater seats, “on a shoe string theater fund?”

He had him there, he _knew_ how drastically financially unsupported the arts were, and he pursed his lips in displeasure. Crowley, for his part, found this as a triumph and particularly amusing so much to the fact that he crowed with delight. 

“You’re doing this just to get a rise out of me.”

“I’ll stop doing it when you stop looking so adorable when you’re annoyed.”

_Adorable-what. What._

“Oh! Path’s clear,” continued Crowley as if he hadn’t short circuited Aziraphale like that one poor ancient computer he used for taxes. “C’mon, before the crowd gets bad again.” And then he’s grabbing Aziraphale’s arm like it’s a casual thing they do all the time, leading him through the crowds, and letting go when they get out into the cool night air.

It’s dark and cold enough to see their breath on the air but Aziraphale’s face is  _flushed_ and his head is still  full of Crowley’s voice on repeat.  _Adorable, adorable, adorable._

Crowley, in the real word, makes an almost yelp kind of noise, frantically shoving his hands into the too-small pockets of his skinny black jeans. And really, Aziraphale isn’t even sure how he manages to finagle them on, he’s skinny, yes, but they practically mold to his form like a second skin.

“ _Satan_ it’s cold.”

Aziraphale blinks, dragging his eyes from Crowley’s rather nice, if small, butt, up to where the man is trying not to obviously shiver. Because he’s not wearing a jacket. He’s got a sleek long sleeved black shirt on that looks thinner than his usual fair, and the scarf he’s got is more of a glorified silver shoestring hanging round his neck than an actual scarf. 

“It never fails to astound me,” he starts, already pulling off his topmost sweater layer, “how you own all of the appropriate clothing and choose to wear none of it when it’s deemed necessary.” Here he steps up closer to Crowley who seems to be practically radiating chill despite them having been out of the building for no more than five minutes, and hands him the sweater.

Crowley stares at it dumbly without taking it. “Wut?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, fondness trumping annoyance as was, well, _annoyingly_ common with Crowley. “Don’t play dumb with me dear, I _know_ you own a leather jacket. You insisted on wearing it out to the park the last time we went.” 

“It’s stylish.”

“It was 32ºC.”

“And?”

Just for the petulant tone, Aziraphale took matters into his own hands and tugged the sweater over Crowley’s head in one yank, mussing up his hair, trapping his arms, and leaving the man spluttering in surprise. “And you couldn’t deign to wear it _now?_ When it’s _15º?_ And you _know_ you get cold so easily?” 

“I- uh, but, it didn’t really- ngk...”

“Thought so.”

Crowley’s face was flushing, whether from the weather or from the situation Aziraphale wasn’t sure, but he took pity on the man and helped him free his arms enough to slip through the sweater. And then it was his turn to flush because while it was snug and comfortable on Aziraphale, it absolutely _swamped_ the skinny as a snake Crowley. And there was something about it, about watching Crowley hunch his shoulders in embarrassment with grumbled thanks before he blinked in surprise as he felt how soft the sweater was. There was something about Crowley’s red hair mussed and frizzy and an absolute mess, falling half out of his bun and draping across the soft cream of Aziraphale’s sweater while he picked at the hem of the sweater begrudgingly complementing the softness while in the same breath complaining that it wasn’t his style. There was _something_ about the sight of _Crowley_ in _Aziraphale’s_ sweater.

He shook his head, taking firm control of his thoughts he wrestled them from _wherever_ they were to think such things, and placed them in the train station of ‘getting home’ and hoped furtively that the feelings would follow. 

They did not.

They kept him warmer on the way to the cab than the two sweaters he was wearing did.


	11. A Newt, some gremlins, and a Boston Fern walk into an IT business...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the lovely Tarek-giverofcookies

He’d been too distracted lately. Too distracted by soft cashmere sweaters he couldn’t let go of or return, too distracted by plays and books and AlwaysWinter with Anathema. Too distracted by far and now the Dowlings’ party was this weekend and Crowley still wasn’t sure how he was going to be in two places at once.

Bloody catering... He had a shop to run, he couldn’t just be going off willy-nilly to  _ hand deliver and set up  _ the flower arrangements for a bloody socialite party. But he’d agreed. Because he could use the money. And because Warlock had cared enough to engineer it to happen, the little hellion.

So here he was, taking an early lunch because he was too anxious to keep his hands steady, and as well as the plants had been behaving lately he didn’t want to accidentally bend something. So. Caffeine. Caffeine might steady his nerves- his hands- both.

He’s halfway to Knead to Know when the glass door to his immediate left flings open and nearly clips Crowley straight in the head. It’s the work of a moment to twist out of the way, cursing all the while at the oblivious arsehole, only to finally look up and see-

“Lost Boy!”

There’s those nervous eyes, the shuffle from foot to foot as he apologizes for nearly bowling Crowley over and then the hesitant, “uh, actually, it’s Newton.”

“Right, right,” he’s waving it away carelessly because he’s just taken notice of the box of shame Newton’s holding. Or rather, the extremely delicate and hard to keep alive Boston Fern that’s nestled in with the various office supplies shoved into the ‘just got job dumped’ box. “Whatever, listen. Is that yours?” He’s pointing at the flower, mind whirling, gears turning.

“Uh. Yes?”

“ _ Psssh. _ It’s either yours or itsn’t. Which is it?”

“It’s mine. Turpin’s my duck.”

Crowley blinked. No the Boston Fern was definitely still a Boston Fern. “...your wut?”

“Oh, uh,” he shifted again, the contents of his box rattling but the plant, apparently named Turpin, staying steady despite it all, “see, in IT there’s this thing where you have a rubber duck on your desk and you talk to it when you’re stuck on a problem and it helps you figure it out.”

Dubiously, “Right.... Listen.”

“...yeah?”

“You sacked?”

Immediately Newt’s shoulders hunched up and his mouth opened to either deny or affirm it but Crowley’s mind is on a fast track one track train and his mouth bowls them both over before he’s quite thought  _ anything _ through. “Did you care for the plant yourself?”

“‘Course.”

He seemed confident. Crowley narrowed his eyes at him.

“What kind of soil does it need?”

“Loamy. Though you really need to make sure it’s got good drainage, are you-“

“How much water?”

Bewildered Newt answered again, “Well the root ball needs to stay moist at all times but if it’s not in a humid environment you’ll need to mist it a fair bit. Why? Are you looking to get one? They’re a bit finicky but if you read up on them I’m sure you’d get the hang of it.”

Crowley stared at him. Thought about it. Decided to not think about it.

“Oh what the hell. Want a job Lost Boy?”

“Uh.”

Feeling like the boy was panicking for no reason Crowley went on to explain, gesticulating the whole while, “look, you’ve obviously been sacked and I need someone to mind the shop while I’m out with deliveries. Or you can do the deliveries.” He shrugged, “either way. Easy stuff. Plant shop.”

“I, uh, really prefer to do computer based jobs- I mean, I went into Computer Sciences so I could-“

“I’ve got a smart cash register and those white cube buggers that you put on your phone to let people pay through. That’s techy. C’mon, s’not like you’ve got anything better going on. No job, probably lots of bills to pay, why not work for me till your dream job rolls around?”

“Uh, well, I-“

“Fantastic!” Crowley grinned, shook Newt’s hand, shoved a business card into that very same hand, and rattled off, “the address is on here. See you tomorrow at 10am sharp. I have a delivery at 11 and we’ll cover the plant rules and schedules then.”

“I- okay??”

“Great! See you tomorrow Lost Boy.”

“I prefer Newt, actually, Mr. Crowley.”

“Right. Newt. Huh, I’m surprised you remembered my name. Rubbish at names, me.”

Newt gave a faint smile as if he figured that before explaining, “just handy with names, I suppose.”

“And plant care?”

“Oh, well. I’ve got a photographic memory. Really helps with that sort of thing.”

Crowley’s eyebrows raised, intrigued and already planning, “ _ oh do you now _ ?”

-

Thursday arrived bright at 10am with a befuddled Newton who still wasn’t, 100%, sure how  _ exactly _ he had ended up agreeing to a job. Or how he’d been offered it at all.

There were rules, regulations (for Newt  _ and _ the plants), and a whirlwind of information. By 11 he’d shorted out the cash register twice, brought down the electronic doorbell three times, and took out some other electrical device once (that Crowley swore at but wouldn’t tell Newt just what it was). So he was, rather emphatically, pushed out the door to do the 11am delivery while Crowley did damage control.

Newt didn’t really think there  _ was _ a delivery for 11am, otherwise why would he be leaving  _ at _ 11 and not before to be able to  _ arrive _ at 11, but figured maybe Mr. Crowley was testing him or just really really wanted to get him out of the shop.

_ - _

Sometimes Newt thinks his life seems like the set up of a bar joke. Or any joke really. 

It’s probably why when he walks into the shop he’s supposed to deliver the flower arrangement to, he’s not particularly surprised that it’s an occult shop. 

It’s a little startling that the woman behind the counter already has her eyes on his before he’s even walked in through the door, but maybe that was just luck. (Maybe there’s a security camera she saw him coming on like Mr. Crowley has.)

But no, he’s not that lucky. The next words out of her mouth startle him into nearly turning right back around and leaving. If it weren’t for how terrifyingly beautiful she was.

“Uh, I- sorry?” He tries, not because he didn’t hear her, but more of because he’s always been terribly bad with beautiful women, and she’s awfully striking. His tongue feels too large and clumsy, his hands feel a bit clammy, and honestly he’s just glad that he’s still got a good grip on the pot he’s holding. Also, he’s pretty sure he’s forgotten entirely what she’s said.

Her hair is dark and curly, and her cheeks hit the bottom of the lenses of her glasses when she smiles at him. He’s startled by her brisk “Nevermind that!” and clap of her hands, she stands from the counter, coming around it in a flurry of skirts, “now, would you prefer a palm reading or a tarot card reading?”

“Uh.”

Her smile widened. “Tarot card reading it is.”

That was probably for the best as his hands had already started sweating and honestly he was feeling a bit concerned for the pot he was still holding- the pot!

“Oh! These are for you- uh, wait, you’re Anathema right?”

“I am, and thank you for the flowers Newton.”

“They’re from Mr. Crowley, actually, and, wait- how did you know my name?”

She  _ winked _ at him! “Witches never reveal their secrets.” And then she was turning away again, skirts swishing as she took the pot over to the front counter. (when did she take it from him??) She set it up in the far right corner where she’d be able to see it but still have it out of the way and then gestured him to follow her back through a curtain.

“I really don’t think I should- I mean, I’m still working and all and-”

“Just tell him that I kept you,” she answered breezily as she held the curtain open for him, “he’ll probably take pity on you actually,” she herded him towards a cushy stool and then seated herself at an identical one across a small round table from him.

“Alright, let’s see what we’re working with here.”

And that’s how he found himself getting a Tarot Card Reading done for him by the oddest american he’d yet met, and totally unsurprised at not knowing how he ended up here. And then, as was typical of a poorly done bar joke, Crowley barged in (as well as one could when the door was a curtain and not an actual wooden door).

“Bloody hell, I should have figured you’d steal the poor guy.”

“Stealing’s a strong word,” Anathema replied, chin settling in her palm, elbow planted squarely between Newt’s present and future cards. “After all, you’re the one who gave him to me.”

Newt felt he ought to say something about not being a thing but Crowley was already spluttering and objecting.

“Gave?  _ Gave? _ Ana I  _ sent _ him to make a  _ delivery _ ! Of which, you were supposed to send him  _ back  _ after he’d done his  _ job _ .” Crowley blinked, swiveled to look at Newt and arched an eyebrow over dark sunglasses, “you  _ did _ deliver the arrangement...”

Before Newt could even respond Anathema butted in again, “of course he delivered the flowers you menace! He’s a full grown adult, he can be trusted to do what he’s supposed to.”

“Oh really now? Because as I recall  _ you _ were  _ supposed _ to text me when he arrived.”

Anathema rolled her eyes, “oh please, I know you’re a worrywart about your babies-”

“-My  _ what?!-” _

“-but no one’s going to accidentally kill them-”

“’ _ Won’t accidentally’- _ Do you  _ not _ remember-”

Well. At least that cleared up how she knew he was coming and his name. For a moment there he was afraid he might be in danger of accidentally offending an actual witch. He had enough going on in his life without being cursed on top of it thank you.

“Oh please, that was  _ one time- _ ”

“ **Four!** It was **_four_** _times!!”_

“Oh my god… I can’t believe you’re still upset about-”

Words dissolved into consonants and spluttering and Newt wasn’t sure if it would be better to stick around or sneak back out through the curtain.

Actually, “uh, sorry, excuse me but- if you’re here Mr. Crowley, who’s watching the shop?”

“No one. Because this” pointed glare “witch wouldn’t answer any of my texts.”

“Oh quit complaining you dramatic baby-”

“Oi! I had to make sure you hadn’t taken him to be one of your witchy ingredients now-”

Newt startled, “wait- uh-”

“He’s joking,” Anathema stated rather firmly and not all that convincingly before leveling a glare at Crowley, “ _Isn’t he?”_

Crowley sent Newt a sideways glance and an entirely too concerning shrug before unconvincingly saying “suuuure.  _ Probably. _ ”

“Crowley!!”


	12. Surrounded by Idiots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by Tarek_giverofcookies

“He’s cute.”

Crowley looked up from the flower arrangement he was working on, glanced around the shop, and after coming up short on answers grunted a “who?”

Anathema nodded towards Newt, of all people.

Crowley frowned. “Oi, he’s my new employee. No breaking him. Or hexing him.” He glanced at Newt again but still didn’t see it. “And since when?”

“I won’t break him!”

Crowley gave her his best unimpressed look, lips thinned out and eyebrow arched challengingly.

“And since when what?”

“That he’s cute. Don’t see it.”

Anathema rolled her eyes as she handed him the clippers just out of his reach, “you don’t think anyone’s cute. Except for librarians apparently.”

“What? Oh, you mean- he’s not a librarian he’s a book-”

“-repairer,” Anathema echoed with him, “yes, yes, whatever. My point still stands. You’ve got a crush on him, so obviously your tastes can’t be trusted. I mean, he looks like an immortal who got distracted by several books in his basement, popped out for a spot of tea and realized thirty years had passed and _still_ decided not to update his wardrobe.”

“Ha! That’d explain the hoard of ancient books he’s got.” He was still grinning at her when the rest of her words filtered in. “Wait. What? I don’t have a crush on him.”

She took in his perplexed expression, raised her eyebrows, and said, “are you sure?”

Crowley made a raspberry-like sound, dismissive, and hand-waved it away, going back to his flower arrangement, “’course I’m sure. I’m pretty certain I’d notice if I had a crush on one of my best friends.”  
Anathema just hummed, an unconvinced sound that only abated when he shot her a glare.

-

“I just- I dunno- how do you talk to women?

This, hot on the heels of that last conversation he just had with Ana, is the _last_ thing he wants. Ana’d _just_ left and he thought he was in the clear. Apparently today was the universe’s ‘pick on Crowley’ day.

Newt continued on anyways, seemingly unaware of the dread mounting in Crowley, and said “she’s just so… so…”  
Crowley regrets everything. Mainly hiring Newt, but also befriending Ana who Newt can’t function properly around, and also starting this shop. And maybe even moving to this town. It’ll depend on how bad this gets, really.

“... _Beautiful._ ”

At the awed tone Crowley’s head pops up, startled. The snark comes out without any manual input from his brain, as it often does in times of startlement. “Terrifying, more like.”

This does not sway the awed tone in the least. “Terrifyingly beautiful.” Newt amends in a frankly terrifyingly besotted tone. What were these people drinking? First Ana and now Newt. They’d met, what, twice now? _Satan Below_.

“I dunno. You just talk to them. They’re people.”

Newt’s face did some twisting and made a rather strange spectacle of itself into what Crowley could mostly interpret as nervousness, awkwardness, and embarrassment.

“I know,” he sounded so miserable, “it’s just that I always stutter, or stumble. I, uh, forget what I was going to say when they-” here’s a nervous yet nebulous hand wave to express _something_. Crowley’s going to guess it’s supposed to be when a pretty lady exists and looks at Newt.

“You don’t seem to have any problem talking to me.” Crowley wasn’t getting paid enough to talk about feelings.

“But you’re _you_.”

Dryly Crowley deadpanned, “thanks.”

“No, I just mean- uhhh, I- … I shoved my foot in my mouth with that one.”

“You did.”

Sad puppy dog eyes. _Angels above._ He didn’t get paid enough and in fact, _he_ was paying _Newt_ and still putting up with this.

Crowley placed the flower arrangement in the vase, grabbed the ribbon rolls because if he had to do this while making eye contact it was _not gonna happen._

“Look. Just talk to them. Like they were me. Or, I dunno, you got siblings? Or other friends you can talk easily with? No? Well, shit I dunno what to tell you.”

There’s a tense and awkward silence that Crowley immediately hates. He’s using the flat side of a pair of scissors to curl the ends of the ribbon bow and the _shhhhhhk_ sound it creates is as loud as a megaphone in the shop. He slams the scissors down, turns on Newt so fast that the poor guy startles and fumbles (but thankfully doesn’t drop) the fern he was carrying.

“Alright. Look. Just say hi. Talk about, I dunno, whatever interests you have. If you stutter, you stutter. If you stall out, look at her and compliment something. Just pick something. Other than that, I’ve no idea.”

Somehow _somehow_ this earns him a grateful smile? The hell?

“Thanks Crowley.”

“….you’re... welcome?”

Newt gave a short laugh, “it’s just nice is all, to have someone listen to you.”

Well, alright. Crowley can understand that one. More than he’d care to admit.

“Yeah yeah,” he finished the bow, stepped back to analyze the arrangement as a whole, had a random thought, and opened his mouth before realizing this would prolong the conversation that he’d _just been trying to get out of._ “What’re you gonna do on the days I present femininely?”

“Stutter and stumble and stall out, I suppose.”

Crowley laughed.

Alright then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's saying they're surrounded by idiots?  
> Your call  
> ;P


	13. Crowley.exe has crashed, system restart required

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ready?? >:3
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely Tarek-giverofcookies

“And _then-”_ Aziraphale has to bite back a grin as Crowley glances at him to make sure he’s paying proper attention to his venting, “and _then_ Newt starts in on it too!”

The poor boy had started in on this before Aziraphale had even managed to get his coat on after Crowley waltzed in. He was doing his rant as he circled Aziraphale in the shop, waiting without complaining (about  _him_ at least) as  Aziraphale went about setting the shop to rights before locking up to leave. And if  Crowley snuck in his habitual  rounds of checking the shop for bugs and whatever else his anxiety-ridden mind co o ked up, well, Aziraphale pretended not to notice.

He always did this. At first it puzzled Aziraphale. Crowley, even that very first time, would circle and wander with seemingly no purpose (ever so careful to never wander in the same pattern twice, something that did nothing if not stick out to Aziraphale) around the shop. He’d hum, make conversation, but he kept his head too forward facing, too obviously trying not to  betray where his eyes were looking. (Or at least it was obvious to Aziraphale who’ d had years of where noticing this kind of behavior could mean the difference between being  ambushed or not ) 

A t first, he thought Crowley had been suspicious of  _him_ , but he ruled that out with how obviously at ease Crowley was with him otherwise. Only the location seemed to make an impact. Places he was familiar with only got cursory looks, places he’d never been before or hadn’t frequented often got more in-depth checkouts. Indeed, after the first few visits  to his shop , Crowley’s rounds were more cursory with much less scrutiny. And, as if comforted by the absolute lack of technology in the shop (even Aziraphale’s till was nearly as ancient as some of the books he housed), Crowley seemed even more at ease here, in Aziraphale’s shop, than most places out in town.

Aziraphale’s pretty  certain that Crowley doesn’t know that he understands exactly just what he’s doing every time he comes over, but he doesn’t correct him. It wouldn’t be beneficial in any way to point it out and it would  only  fluster and embarrass the poor dear terribly to be so seen. And anyhow, everyone’s got their own coping mechanisms.  If it helps with his anxiety  and paranoia , then who was Aziraphale to judge him for it?

“Don’t understand why they’re both going on about-” the pause in the ranting makes Aziraphale look up only to loose his stomach as it plummets like a rock, hard and _cold._ Crowley is holding another stark white envelope, though marred slightly by the faint imprint of a shoe. “Wut’s this- shit,” he flips it over as he notices the boot print on it, “didn’t mean to step on it- who just leaves mail on the floor?” He glances above his glasses at Aziraphale, a teasing curl to the edge of his smirk, and Aziraphale’s _trying_ to get his heart rate back under control but he knows _exactly_ what Crowley’s holding and it’s _hard_.

As casually as he can manage he nods towards his front door and says,  “ i t’s called a mail slot,  my d ear.” He walks briskly towards him taking the envelope, and the lack of resistance from Crowley makes his breath come easier.  H e tosses it in the waste bin to the left of his desk, gestures towards the door and  _knows_ he has to be nonchalant lest Crowley get  _curious_ ,  and says  “shall we go,  my dear?”

But when he looks up, Crowley isn’t even looking at him. Nor the envelope. Instead his eyebrows are high above those blasted sunglasses and the faintest dusting of pink is scattered across his sharp cheekbones and nose. “Nuh- guh- nnnYeah. Le’s’go.”

Oh. Oh dear.

Aziraphale feels his own cheeks heat slightly.

Blast his nervousness, it always made things slip out. He’d been calling Crowley a dear, like he did everyone, but this time he slipped and called him what he’d been calling him in his head lately. _My_ dear. Preposterous. As if Crowley really _was_ his.

He’s halfway convinced himself to apologize for it, or perhaps ignore the whole thing like it’d never happened, when he sees the faintest twitches of a smile trying to come out on Crowley’s face. But then Crowley turns abruptly,  fumbling at the door and holding  it open for Aziraphale, face turned away, cheeks still slightly pink, ears  coloring to match. And oh wasn’t it darling how easily the flush spread on his freckled skin?

And oh he can’t help himself, he really can’t. He wants to see what happens if he pushes, just a little bit. He wants to see how far that blush can go.

So he straightens his waistcoat, tilts his head towards Crowley as he passes through the door, and lets his hand  brush very briefly against Crowley’s shoulder and says “thank you my dear boy.”

And oh Crowley reacts beautifully. That mouth falls open at the same time as that flush spreads down his neck, dipping into his v-neck shirt as he stutters and stumbles and gapes.

“Where did you say we were going dear boy?”

“Guh-nuhhh… ‘sss the new Italian place down the street.”

“Oh how lovely.” And he was.

/

“Ssssure.” Crowley shoves his clammy hands in his pockets, his body feels wired full of restless energy with no outlet even as they begin walking.

Why’s he so restless? Why does he feel so weird? Gosh. It’s just Aziraphale. It’s just- it’s just Aziraphale glancing at him with that half coy little smirk on his face. Just Crowley’s insides stirring oddly at the smile, at him being the cause of the smile. It’s just Ana’s voice echoing in his head _‘are you sure?’_.

_Goddamn._ What the  _hell_ is going on with him today?

It’s  _fine_ . He’s  _fine._ Aziraphale’s  _fine._

Shit- he meant Aziraphale’s  _okay_ not- not fine as in the kind of ‘fine’ people say after whistling at poor strangers on the street. Not the kind that makes them look them up and down slowly. Though it’s not like Crowley’s ever really paid enough attention to see if Aziraphale  _was_ fine or not.

...Was he?

He chanced a look.

Aziraphale caught his eyes and smiled and for no reason at all Crowley’s face caught fire and he had a sudden urge to look anywhere but at Aziraphale.

“So- uh, how was- I mean, any annoying customers today?”

Aziraphale seemed to take pity on him  or  on his rather weak segway  and says “no, not as of such. Blessedly there were little interruptions. But dear, you were saying  Anathema and Newt were bothering you with ?”

Crowley grasped for that conversation like a drowning man. Like a drowning man delirious with fear and clutching onto a buoy not recognizing it to be the lead weight that it was.

“Yeah- they were both going on today about… about… shit.”

“About shit?”

He chanced a glance at that, unable to help himself,  “ o h shuddup. It’s- uh, they…”  fuck, well, in a penny, in a pound, “it’s- they kept going on about all their love life woes! Like, what about this- ” here he gestures at all of him, tattooed, pierced, and clad in leather, “screams ‘come tell me all your woes’?!” 

H e can’t help it, he’s getting back in the swing of it, relaxing again, familiarity in the banter breeding comfort, and he swings his teasing smile Aziraphale’s way only to falter quite literally in his steps when he finds Aziraphale quite plainly  _looking him up and down._

He… he does not know what to do with this information.

The fact that Aziraphale is looking him up and down, the fact that the way his lips tilt into that bit of a bastardly smirk makes Crowley’s skin feel hot, the fact that when he opens his mouth all of Crowley wants to know desperately what he’s going to say at the same time that he’s utterly dreading it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” the slow drag of his eyes felt like they were trailing lines of fire on Crowley’s skin. what. what?? “you look…”

Crowley, far too distracted by whatever the answer was going to be, chose this moment to trip. Or, more accurately, a jagged part of the sidewalk reached up and snagged the toe of his boot and sent him windmilling forward with a startled yelp (that he absolutely would not admit to).

There’s a moment, the moment everyone has, when you feel your center of balance _pitch_ over to the unreachable unattainable side. The moment when you imagine, very vividly, _just_ the way the concrete will feel, mashed into the side of your face and scraping the palms of your hands.

He has this. And then he has a completely new sensation.

The feeling of warm, steady hands and arms wrapping around him. _Catching him._

It startles him almost into slipping right back out of the arms that have caught him.

Some distant part of his mind not pinwheeling with panic and other unidentifiable emotions is registering dimly that this seems to be an almost reversal of their very first meeting. But as mentioned previously, most of his mind is too busy running around in circles panicking.

What does he do with his hands? He’s got hands, right? Right.

Why is his mind so bloody useless right now?

It’s just Aziraphale saving him from face-planting awfully into the concrete. It’s just Aziraphale setting him back on his feet like he weighs practically nothing and _oh_ why does _that_ spark something weird in him?

“Are you all right my dear?”

_My dear. My dear. My dear-_

“Gu-nh nnYeah. Yeah. M’fine. Yup. Totally fine.”

_Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?_

“I- uh- thanksss.” God _damn_ his- his-

“No problem dear.” Only Aziraphale hovers, his face in front of Crowley’s, eyebrows pinched together like something’s worrying him. Crowley’d love to ask him what’s wrong only he’s so close to his face that it seems to be short-circuiting something. Unfortunately, it’s not short circuiting Ana’s voice in the back of his head, or Aziraphale’s voice from a moment ago, or any of his circling thoughts that aren’t being much productive at all.

Aziraphale opens his mouth, closes it without saying anything, and then opens it again. Crowley notices and isn’t entirely sure just _why_ he’s noticing that. Why _that’s_ the thing his brain is seeming to focus on but _whatever._

“You know, this quite reminds me of something.”

That was not at all what Aziraphale was going to say but Crowley latches onto it anyways, “oh?” he knows what, he knows what, he knows, “what?”

Aziraphale’s hands drag down Crowley’s arms as he lets go, they seem reluctant to leave and Crowley feels almost reluctant to let them leave. But then Aziraphale smiles and doesn’t step back so he’s still close, he’s just not _as_ close as before, and says “it reminds me of the day we met. Do you remember?”

“’course I remember. Be bloody hard to forget.”

Aziraphale blushed, eyes suddenly averting as nervousness took over and oh Crowley hated to do that, hated to bring up something that made him fiddle with his pinky ring again.

“I did make quite a fool of myself didn’t I?”

“Never!” Aziraphale turned sharply at the force behind Crowley’s words and it was too late to try and make it less adamant even if he wasn’t any less adamant about it. Maybe it was too- too _something_ but he never wanted Aziraphale to feel badly of himself. Never.

Why did the words always vanish when he needed them most? Where was his charm? His cunning? His silver tongue?

Fiction. It was flash and fiction and things he wanted to be but wasn’t.

He was just him. Just Crowley. Crowley with a lisp sometimes and that stammered and stumbled over words when his emotions got high. Not a cool secret agent that knew all the right words and had the perfect quips at the perfect time. Just Crowley.

“Plays.”

“Sorry?”

“I-You- the plays. We talked about plays.” Understanding was blooming on Aziraphale’s face but for some reason Crowley couldn’t just stop there. “And my plants. Audrey and the rest. You listened. And we had the pastries. ‘Course I couldn’t forget the day we met. Was one of the best bloody days of my life.”

“Oh. Oh _Crowley._ That’s so sweet-”

“-is not.” but the reaction was half hearted at best, more from embarrassment at having said too much than anything else, “is the truth. Whatever!” Were they there yet? Satan below please let them be close. When had they stopped walking? They were never going to get there if they didn’t start walking again.

Crowley started walking again, stubbornly ignoring the soft smile on Aizraphale’s face.

“Well, it is that too. It’s both.”

Crowley made a noise.

“And anyhow, it was kind of you to say-”

“-was not-”

“-hush. It was. And I remember that day fondly as well.”

Despite himself he glanced at Aziraphale.

“You do?”

Aziraphale beamed at him. “I do. How could I not? A rakish handsome man coming to my rescue? Saving me from a very embarrassing fall and even managing to save my pastries? It was quite the  memorable experience.”

“...was only half of them.”

“Pish posh. It’s more than I would have had if not for you. And they did taste ever so better with the good company.”

Crowley was trying very hard not to say anything stupid or do anything else stupid. It was hard because his mind was fritzing and his body felt warm and all of this was so very confusing and new. Why on earth was he reacting like this?

He was glad that Aziraphale remembered it fondly too, but for some reason his insides seemed to trill. It was a weird vibratey thing that he wasn’t entirely sure he _didn’t_ dislike. It seemed a bit much for just being happy that Aziraphale liked his company too. A bit much for what Aziraphale was saying.

“How _is_ Audrey doing?”

Hello lifeline/lifesaver/life-preserver/whatever floaty thing that saves you from drowning!

“They’re doing good, actually. Just had to move them to a bigger pot actually-”

The rest of the trip to the Italian restaurant is easier. More relaxed.

There's a moment, upon seeing the candle lit tables, that Crowley freezes up in what is absolutely not panic and most certainly a great deal of confusion over his not panic. But they end up eating outside due to the "good day, we ought to enjoy it dear" and it's considerably more casual. So that's that.

"Oh," Crowley says somewhere after the entrees and midway through the first dessert, "nearly forgot.”

Aziraphale finishes giving a delighted wiggle at what must be a delicious dessert before dabbing his mouth with his napkin. "Forgot what, my dear?"

_My dear. My dear. My dear_

"Mmmnngl LostBoy. Newt. Newton. He, uh, remember the whole" here he inserted a nebulous hand wave because he _really_ doesn't want to get into that conversation again if he can help it.

"Oh, yes, the flirting and relationship advice."

Crowley made another noise. He's not sure what _kind_ of noise it is, but it's flustered a bit, and Aziraphale's eyes crinkle at the edges like when he's trying to hold back a smile.

"NnnnYeah. So. He tried to ask Ana out."

Amused he queried, “tried?

Crowley snorted, "yeah. Only he managed to fumble it entirely. Couldn't quit from stammering and kept loosing nerve halfway through asking her to the town Halloween party as his date."

Aziraphale seemed unreasonably amused. "Hmmm." There was that smug smile again. But what reason did he have to be smug?? Weird.

"He didn't back out all the way, I'll give him that. But instead of asking her as his date, he asked her to come with us as a group to it."

"Oh? Us? A group?"

"Yeah," Crowley snickered, "at least he didn't back peddle so hard he didn't invite her at all. But still- a group invite?" Crowley fought against another laugh and but lost to the grin stretching his face.

Aziraphale stayed quiet long enough that Crowley looked at him. Which was a mistake.  Aziraphale was waiting. Eyebrow arched, one hand absently stirring his tea, small smug smile toying at his lips.

"My dear, is this your way of asking _me_ to the party?"

“Ngk- I- wha? Wuh? No, I mean, not no! But I- I mean, yes, but not as a- not as not a- _**guh!**_ ” Defeated, he buried his burning face in his hands, “wait- wait a minute,” he jerked his head back up, pointing accusingly at Aziraphale “you’re- you’re teasing me aren’t you?!” 

Aziraphale widened his eyes dramatically, exaggeratedly placed a hand against his chest, looked around as if Crowley could mean  _ literally anybody else,  _ and did an entirely theatrical “Who?  _ Me?” _

“ _Yes_ you!!”

And then Aziraphale smiled. “A little bit,” he admitted with a bastardly twinkle in his eyes.

He stared at him for a beat before giving in to the laugh. Aziraphale chuckled lightly, a hand partially covering his lips as they stretched into a more fond smile.

“The answer’s yes, by the by.”

“What?”

“To going with you.”

“Oh. _Oh._ Guh- great.”

Aziraphale snickered.

“Oh ha ha, laugh it up.”

“Shall I? I could. I could go for a more hearty laug-”

“No! No- don’t I- guh.”

Aziraphale laughed. But quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:DDD
> 
> Flirting!  
> And does this mean I'll be running a Halloween party chapter in December? Why yes, yes it does!


End file.
